Nameless Grave
by Alexander Richards
Summary: A dramatic retelling of New Vegas, updated every weekend. Arc 3: Returning to the Mojave, Courier Six stands ready to dig up the past, even as the warring nations slowly ripping the region apart begin to take notice of his efforts and stake their claim on his abilities, or if not, then his life. "All roads wind down to the same spot. The Grave."
1. Prologue: Dead Man's Hand

**Foreword: **To all my readers, hello, and thank you for clicking a link to this story of mine: Nameless Grave. Before we begin our tale into the lives and conflicts of the Mojave Wasteland and the surrounding region I'd like to lay down a few bits and pieces to establish what's going to happen with this retelling:

Firstly, to say this is largely based upon Fallout: New Vegas is a drastic understatement. When I say retelling I mean I have actually gone through and tried to be as accurate as I can on directly quoting characters the courier speaks with. Naturally, it makes sense to mention of course that what I am therefore writing about is almost entirely the property of Bethesda and Obsidian, barring references to songs who belong to their respective owners, and most of the Courier's backstory, which I have personally tailored around the vague outline Obsidian has given me.

Second, before anyone asks, I will be covering the DLCs. I've tried to set them throughout the story far enough apart so as not to take too much away from the core action, which takes place in the Mojave itself as many of you will already know, while also setting good points for the Courier to take 'downtime' so to speak, where a lull in the main storylines can be engineered to justify leaving. As this is not a sandbox videogame, time will not stand still even as the dates trickle by while the Courier faffs about the Big Empty, and he will not be the sole catalyst that drives the story. Sometimes other people will take care of sidequests that the player is theoretically capable of completing three years after being shot in the head. I have no need to pander to a player character's freedom, and thus this won't be the case. So to pull this off I'll be adding a few original characters into the Wastes to take the role of additional 'player characters' so to speak. I've kept the number of originals to a minimum in an attempt to avoid disrupting the work too much, but I use them to help further portray the sense of time flowing onwards in the Mojave. If Six is busy doing a job in Novac, someone else might be killing Fiend leaders in Outer Vegas. Hopefully you'll find it adds to the narrative.

Third, as touched on in the first point, I have given this Courier a backstory. I could list many reasons, but the main point is that it's to make the story more interesting. This isn't your Courier Six, it's mine, you're not playing as him, you're reading about him. It's a different media, so its a different approach.

Fourth, a note before people wonder; nope, I'm not telling you which faction the Courier will support, and no, I'm not telling you which sidequests he'll complete along the way, that'd ruin the surprise. Yes, he'll complete some. Many quests I've streamlined for the sake of helping the story run smoothly. Often a quest will involve fetching random objects or running back and forth a few times to carry messages to people. This is fine in the game world where the road between Goodsprings and Primm is thirty seconds on the road, but the real Mojave is considerably larger in scope. How much larger? Truth be told I haven't a clue, so if you find the timestamps on how fast or slow the Courier travels off, just go with it. I'm not perfect, and I've never even touched American soil. Which leads us to our fifth and final point so we can hit the story.

I don't live in America. Never been there, never even gone north of the equator. As such, I've been brought up being taught how to spell real English, the kind with all the 'u's. I considered trying to keep with the alternative spellings, but ultimately I simply can't manage it. It's deeply programmed that I spell correctly (barring the occasional typo) and I simply can't bring myself to write in that... _other _way.

Hahaha, okay, I'll shut up with the foreword now. If anyone cares to ask me any questions somewhere other than , I'm an active member on the New Vegas boards of GameFAQs, both Xbox and Playstation, though the Xbox board is more crowded, so I'm usually found there. Without further ado:

* * *

><p><em><strong>Dead Man's Hand<strong>_

_Viva Las Vegas: 2025!_

A tower lit up, framed beautifully against the night stars with the moon, enormous and blue hanging over its shoulder like a doting lover. Seated upon the spire, a wheel not unlike the sort seen in casinos for roulette. A picture celebrating glamour and ambition in a different time. Inside things had remained the same, but outside humanity had made no attempt at pause. Life had gone on... and ended.

The sign outside, lit up with neon and flashing lights, clearly christened the great tower as 'The Lucky 38'. A casino with a revolving cocktail lounge and a view of the surrounding lands for miles in all directions. Someone had kindly spray painted a 't' over the 'v' telling the owner what they thought of his idea of a nauseating upstairs eatery.

The streets of what had once been this world-renowned city were not quiet tonight either, nor had they been for some time. Alight with flame as always, the seductive signature of another casino cut itself out against the sky, this one far more the temptress than the Lucky 38's stark statement of size. 'Gomorrah' read the sign, flanked by the silhouettes of two seated ladies, a leg in the air each in invitation for any man (or woman) to saunter on through the door for more than just a game of blackjack.

A contingent of patrons stumbled down the street, one patriotically waving a flag above his head and not looking up at it lest the fluttering shape tug his stomach until it escaped through his mouth. Past the other casinos, hotels and more, the former southern entrance to the city, long walled off, still held onto its name, or at least its new one. The sign, standing tall and proud, reaching over the wall that separated it from the broken slums of the less wealthy beyond, was home to another kind of silhouette, this one with intentions far removed from the girls of Gomorrah.

It shifted, and a gloved hand rose to a small dial set in the temple of a helmet. Two panes of thick glass flashed red as the technology in them once again hummed to life, and the world through the viewer's eyes was suddenly represented through heat signatures. The duster flapped in the cold night air, and the gloved hand returned down, gripping the barrel of the rifle. Resting it on the sign's edge, he surveyed the streets where those without money prowled. It was home to more than those who lacked wealth though; those who lacked sanity, made worse by a lack of drugs prowled the south and west beyond the wall now. Aha, a warm body of red through the blue!

A single bang exploded, muffled inside the helmet but no doubt heard by both the drunken patrons in the decadent street and the parasites amongst the dilapidated buildings on the other side.

A bullet whizzed away from the sign, leaving behind what was once called 'Las Vegas' to go on its own journey through the skull of some drug addict down in the streets, clutching futilely to some rifle in dire need of repair who collapsed backwards, their last thoughts of just one more burst of some chemical through their body leaking out the newborn hole in the back of their head, alongside the brain matter that had long since ceased to function properly.

It bounced along the ground, its grand journey ending almost as soon as it began, the metal misshapen after its impact with the solid concrete of broken pavement. It came to rest in a ditch somewhere, another story in Vegas that ended with a bullet.

Further away, hidden in the darkness and kneeling over the hilltop, the glass eyes of binoculars shifted away from the keen eyes of an explorer. Thrust into the earth beside him a flag of his allegiance fluttered, a fellow contender for the desert's riches. His arm rose and he gestured to his east; there was nothing down there to see them from this far away. Their clandestine actions would go unnoticed tonight. Behind him his brothers darted across the ridge, boots crunching on the earth as they ran. It was their mission to learn, and learn they had. Now they would return, report their findings, strengthen the ranks with the power of knowledge.

The desert winds picked up again, blowing dust over the roads that spider-webbed throughout the region, most cracked and broken over years without maintenance.

All outside felt the chill. Some turned away from it, hiding behind jackets, coats, blankets, or just the defensive caress of a sheet of iron. Some stared into it, boldly declaring their strength to the night. Some moved with it, using its encouragement to bolster their travels.

Some ignored it, like the small party standing on the hilltop. They had more important things to attend to than which way the wind was blowing.

Like the unconscious body lying tied up only a few feet away from them, or the grave they were digging for it to occupy.

~O~

_War. War never changes._

_When atomic fire consumed the Earth those who survived did so in great underground Vaults. When they opened, their inhabitants set out across the ruins of the Old World to build new societies, establishing villages, forming tribes._

_As decades passed, what had been the American Southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic; dedicated to Old World values of democracy and the rule of law._

_As the Republic grew so did its needs. Scouts set east, seeking territory and wealth in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world, and a great wall spanning the Colorado River. The NCR mobilised its army and sent it east to occupy Hoover Dam and restore it to working condition._

_But across the Colorado another society had arisen, under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged from the conquest of eighty-six tribes: Caesar's Legion._

_Four years have passed since the Republic held the Dam, just barely, against the Legion's onslaught. The Legion did not retreat. Across the river it gathers strength. Campfires burn, training drums beat._

_Through it all the New Vegas Strip has stayed open for business under the control of its mysterious overseer Mr. House and his army of rehabilitated tribals and police robots._

_Amidst it, a single courier, hired by the Mojave Express to deliver a package to the New Vegas Strip. What seemed like a simple delivery job though, took a turn for the worse..._

~O~_  
><em>

"You got what you were after, so pay up."

"You're crying' in the rain, pally."

The words drifted through the air, vaguely drilling through the ringing in his ears. He was on the ground, cold dirt in his face. As vision returned, the first thing that became apparent were the gloves over his hands, far too big, so as to make him clumsy if he tried to escape. Roped around his wrists, keeping them secure over his digits was a tightly bound knot. He gave it a few experimental twists, straining against his bindings, seeing if he could find weakness anywhere along the ropey snakes that held his hands together. Nothing.

"Guess who's waking up over here?" came another voice. That made three separate people now, all men.

All right, they already had him hostage. Might as well see what he was dealing with.

He looked up, and one became immediately obvious, taking one last puff of a cigarette before tossing it to the ground and stamping it out. He wore the kind of shoes the businessmen of the Old World must have adored. They hadn't been worn long either, judging by how clean they were. His pale cream coloured pants made for a figure far from menacing, leading up to a checkered suit that did well in distinguishing the wearer from any other faceless wanderer across the desert. Underneath it, a plain white shirt and tie, another Old World vestment seen only on faded billboards and whatever was left of ragged photos. His hair was slicked back, an effect that could only have come from use of some kind of product, a rarity these days; most were more concerned with day-to-day survival than something like clean, good looking hair. The picture was enough to make a guess at this man's origins.

The other two flanking him were considerably less pretty. To Checkers' left was one who looked sure he was the life of the party; a spiked mohawk a jarring orange dominated an otherwise shaven head, darkened by the once again returning hair. Wrapped around his forehead, holding a few of the spikes down was a bandana, held up by the brows of excitable eyes. A thick line of facial hair ran along his jaw to frame his face, and his mouth hung open as he watched the cigarette's life stamped out on the dirt. A black sleeveless jacket kept the air off his torso, leaving his muscular arms exposed to the cold. His hands sought refuge in a pair of gloves, probably biker issue. He wore two separate pairs of lower body attire: a pair of flaring shorts that covered the top half of some nondescript pants, ending in large boots, the kind of someone who could have and likely will walk a long way through a variety of terrain. Rocking back and forth on his legs in anticipation, Mr. Excitable carried a shovel. Based on the hole in the ground, it wasn't just for knocking out couriers.

The man on the other side wore clothing identical to Excitable, but his skin was darker, as was his hair. A thick moustache concealed the space between his mouth and his nose, and his eyes, like granite, moved from the courier kneeling on the ground to the man in the checkered suit. The bandana on his head, green, knotted the same as Excitable's, sat out more boldly on his forehead against the features of an older man.

"Time to cash out," came the voice of Checkers. Suave, chummy, the sort of man who could easily buy you a drink, talk your ear off, and somehow get you to sign a contract without batting an eye or making you suspicious. The kind of voice heard only from the mouth of a man with a plan, and a tongue that shone silver.

Stache threw his arms wide, clearly eager to be done with things. "Will you get it over with?" he demanded, his voice marking him as the first one to be heard upon waking. Checkers' hand flicked up, a pointer finger speared in the air as he shushed him.

"Maybe Khans kill people without looking 'em in the face, but I ain't a fink, dig?"

What the hell was this man talking about? Finks? Khans? Irrelevant now, one word seemed far more important as Checkers' spared a glance over at Stache. 'Kill'? That was a bit harsh, wasn't it?

Now Checkers' was rummaging in his suit pockets. He let out a sigh as he produced it; a small silver object, no bigger than a coin, exactly the same shape. A poker chip, platinum. He was being murdered over a poker chip?

"You've made your last delivery kid. Sorry you got twisted up in this scene," Checkers' said softly, in a tone that was almost a believable apology were it not immediately followed by a second rummage in his suit, this time producing something silver, and considerably more alarming than a poker chip: a handgun, slender and deadly.

"From where you're kneeling it must seem like an eighteen carat run of bad luck," Checkers' continued. Stache scratched his head, his conscience weighing in on the scene in a disapproving manner. Excitable just looked back and forth from the gun to the courier's face over and over, waiting for the moment he knew was coming.

The pistol pointed at his head, and for a moment the courier stared down the barrel as his life unwound before his eyes. There was so much left to do. So much more he could see. He still had to go home.

"Truth is the game was rigged from the start."

The flash that exploded from that gun must have been what people had seen years ago, moments before the bombs that annihilated the Old World had claimed their lives. Perhaps, from afar, it was how the universe had seemed when it first began, as his mother had described: an explosion, one that had been a beginning instead of an end.

He barely had time to process that though, before the bullet, propelled by the explosion of beginnings and the explosion of endings, tore into his skull and his existence winked out, taking a bow and retreating from the stage that called itself the Mojave, and a curtain of darkness descended, blotting out the stars, the moon, Checkers and his friends, and the lit up tower sitting in the distance.

That night, in the cemetery of Goodsprings, a package courier was felled in the name of a Platinum Chip.

* * *

><p><em>~Dead Man's Hand: The <em>_dead man's hand__ is a two-pair poker hand, namely "__aces and eights__". This card combination gets its name from a legend that it was the five-card-draw hand held by Wild Bill Hickok, when he was murdered on August 2, 1876, in Saloon No. 10 at Deadwood, South Dakota__._

**~N****ameless Grave~**

"_All roads wind down to the same spot. The Grave."_

**One**

**The Road of the Fool:**

**Dual Jokers**


	2. First Hand: First Joker

_**First Hand – First Joker**_

_2__nd__ October 2281_

"Don't recognise you. Which one are you?"

"Courier Six."

"Good thing you came in when you did," he said, striding along the counter and turning away to examine the shelves supporting a number of delivery orders, both fulfilled and pending.

Johnson Nash, owner of the Mojave Express, turned back a moment later with a scrap of paper characterised by his unmistakable chicken scratch. Numbers were scribbled all across it, with the names of possible couriers to carry packages. Looked like a mass delivery for a number of different items. Interesting.

The old man's face scrunched up again. He scratched his shaven head. The wrinkles on his face only compounded as he slid the paper over the counter into my waiting hand.

"Bit of a strange one, but you don't just go turning your nose up at a payment like that, now do ya?" he said finally, as my eyes scan over it, then back up at him.

Nash had come into possession of the company some time ago after the previous owner took a nasty spill one day out wandering. Some people had raised objections to Nash's takeover claiming he was the reason the previous owner was dead, but few had ever really substantiated the claims; it was just easy to blame the man who was benefiting from another's death.

His aged face showed he'd been surviving for a long time though; long enough to lose some hair and gain more than his share of wrinkles over his sun-blasted skin, well-tanned from his days out in the Mojave sun to the point that he looked almost perpetually sunburned, and his tired brown eyes saw the world with a kind of gentle weariness that one almost had to admire.

His features swapped again for the paper though, and my own eyes slid across the numbers on the page.

"This is a lot of caps for a…" I began, before letting my eyes roll down the page to see what exactly was being delivered once again. "…A poker chip? What, is it supposed to be a gambling trophy or something?"

Nash shook his head and gave a shrug before leaning down under the counter. The radio sitting atop it continued to detail the latest happenings in the Mojave, courtesy of the tinny but charming voice of Mr. New Vegas, some radio personality from the Strip who always seemed to know exactly what was going on.

Today he was talking about the Legion getting bold; Nelson was under their control, leaving the NCR camp north of it at the very brink of despair. Aptly enough he added the camp's name was 'Forlorn Hope'.

Nash returned over the counter with the item in question: a platinum chip, looking similar enough to a coin, if a bit thicker. If it weren't for the way it flashed in the light it'd be just another poker chip.

"So who ordered it? All it says here is deliver it to the Strip's north gate by way of Freeside, but how am I going to know the agent when I see 'im?" I asked, picking up the odd delivery item in one of my gloved hands and turning it over. There was a name emblazoned on the reverse side: 'The Lucky 38'.

"Don't know," Nash replied. "Whoever wanted it sent a robot to let us know and fill out the details, so obviously they're not the most popular character about."

"Next thing you know I'm shaking hands with Caesar and handing him a pretty coin," I laughed, sliding the chip into the inner pocket of my coat.

"When you get back you oughta see what you can do about that little bot there too," he added, gesturing along the table.

I looked over at the strange object. A spherical ball of metal lay on the table, with various antennae sprouting from around the speaker mesh at its front, reaching back like wiry tendrils. Attached to its bottom was something akin to a radar dish. I'd always been pretty handy with fixing things, so I figured I'd give it a go and try and fix the old thing.

Stuck to the back with something I couldn't see – magnetism, bolts, gum, whatever it was it stuck hard – was an old license plate, the likes of which you'd normally find on the numerous corpses of cars that to this day still littered the roads of the world. '2ED-E59' was written on it, though the numbers had been scuffed and worn, leaving the little machine to be designated 'ED-E'. According to another bumper sticker stuck fast to the robot's back, its child was an honour student some two hundred years ago as well.

"You got it," I agreed, and stepped towards the door, flicking the chip from my pocket and flicking it through the air to catch it again. Heads.

"You take care of that now, it's worth more than all your other jobs put together," Nash warned. "Hell, you weren't even the first choice of courier for it, truth be told. We had another guy requested."

"Oh yeah? Guess he decided it wasn't worth the money, something this weird," I replied, making sure I had everything I'd need before I left.

"Maybe he did. Saw your name and took off pretty quick, like he was in a hurry to do something important," Nash said.

My curiosity held over this man who had seemingly been scared off just by my name. As if I were a boogeyman. "Is there something you're not telling me about this package?"

The old man spread his arms in a shrug once again. "There's a lot about this job I don't get," he admitted. "But that's a fact. He saw your name, made sure it was real, then decided to let you carry it," he explained.

Suspicion boiled up. A weird job like that, all sorts of variables. Whoever the interested party was, he was clandestine. He'd heard stories of paranoid Vegas Families. Maybe it was a deal with the Omertas.

"Well, I better hope nothing goes wrong. I'd hate to disappoint any fans I might have earned over the years," I said, concealing the niggling feeling of unease with a little humour, which didn't entirely convince Nash.

"Make sure you come back in one piece then," he said. "Maybe you'll meet up next time you're competing for a delivery."

"Maybe," I stated, my mind slipping over the horizon to some place beyond.

I left the Nash residence resolving to do a number of things upon my return, so I decided to take the quicker, riskier way to Vegas: straight up the Interstate 15. It went past Goodsprings and Sloan, both nice enough places, before heading past Quarry Junction and then joining the mesh of streets that made up Outer Vegas. A highly dangerous section of road, but I'd be able to take a quick rest in Goodsprings and then get past Sloan before anything would try to kill me.

_~ The Lucky 38: Take her for a spin! ~_

_19th October 2281 _

Vision was blurred, but amidst the confusion and pain the courier slowly opened his eyes. A ceiling fan, slowly rotating, came into view against the ceiling of some old house. The paint was cracked all over, flaking away to reveal the wood underneath, but it was certainly a roof over his head.

A kindly voice alerted him to a presence other than his own. The voice was old, worn at by the winds of time, but no less a soothing soul for the journey.

"You're awake. How about that."

Grunting with effort, the courier reached behind himself and pushed his body up into a sitting position. The blankets around his waist dropped to reveal he was wearing nothing but his boxers underneath the coverings, and he turned to see where the voice had come from. His head protested with a drumming within his skull. Or maybe something was drumming on its top instead. Either way, he had a headache.

"Whoa, easy there, easy!" the figure warned, slowly coming into focus as the courier looked at him. His arm stretched out and helped steady the courier as his body threatened to topple back against the mattress. "You been out cold a couple o' days now. Why don't you just relax a second, get your bearings?"

He could see his newfound friend clearly now. An old man, his hair long greyed and vanishing from the top of his head, leaving only a pale ring going from ear to ear in a 'u'. His moustache whittled down into points spearing towards his cheeks. Around his neck was a red bandanna with some design over it. He wore black overalls over a dark grey long-sleeved shirt, his lower body covered with the same kind of dark grey pants and his feet protected in simple brown shoes.

A humble picture, the courier mused, wondering whom this man was, before another blast of pain seared through his mind. He'd dreamed while he was asleep… dreamed of a few days ago, when he'd accepted a delivery order, and then… the evening at the cemetery came back to him.

"Let's see what the damage is," the man said finally, as the courier's mind slowly began ticking over. He could almost hear the figurative cogs and gears beginning to turn once more. "How about your name? Can you tell me your name?"

He cast a hook back into his mind, searching for the vital piece of information that defined him. A name: everyone had a name, no? Nothing returned to him. He tried harder. He must have a name; he was, as far as he could see, a human. Parents tended to name their children at birth, or not long after. Parents? Oh no, another enigma. It dawned on him what had happened: that night at Goodsprings he'd been robbed of more than a platinum chip.

His dream fluttered back to him in stretches. He'd been given a title. Close enough for now. Somewhere down the road he'd pick up the truth.

"Six," he rasped, realising quickly he was dehydrated. "Let's go with Courier Six."

The old man paused a moment to register it. "Huh. Can't say it's what I'd have picked for you, but if that's your name, that's your name," he replied eventually, clearly confused by the young man's response. A little worried too, the way his brow creased. He softened again after a moment and seemed to accept that things may be a little jumbled around.

"I'm Doc Mitchell, welcome to Goodsprings," he offered, identifying both who he was and why Courier Six was here. So a doctor had somehow found him. Alive. After being shot in the head.

Before he could be puzzled further, the good doctor continued. "Now I hope you don't mind, but I had to go rootin' around there in your noggin to pull all the bits of lead out. I take pride in my needlework, but you'd better tell me if I left anything out of place," he explained, reaching down to grab something leaned against the leg of his chair.

The should-have-been-dead courier took the opportunity to steal a glance around the room. A semi-transparent screen set at the end of his bed, which no doubt would have been used to screen him from any other visitors during his time 'asleep'. Behind Doctor Mitchell a gurney leaned against the wall, slightly rusty but still in good condition. Sitting atop it was an old typewriter and above that, hanging on the wall, was a clock, the hands of which were missing. Useful.

The floor, like the ceiling, was wood; planks arranged in neat rows to provide a surface for walking over, and sitting beside his bed the courier noted a stand, hanging from which was a bag of some kind of fluid. An IV drip, which he apparently no longer needed, judging by how his bandaged arm wasn't connected to it.

To the right of the gurney the wall shrunk back to accommodate more of the room, his vision blurred but two doorways were distinguishable, and sitting against a far wall was some odd kind of shape. Rectangular, stretching upwards, with the bottom half jutting forward like a stack of drawers.

Then his attention returned to the thing the doctor was pushing into his hands, and the courier took it, letting his eyes refocus. It was a slab of metal, a square with rounded edges and two handles formed out of bumps on either side. A panel at the top read 'RobCo', the name of an Old World company that produced many of the artificial intelligences and robots around America. Many of them remained functioning, though corrupt patches of data were not uncommon, and many had to be forcibly deactivated.

A large circular screen dominated three quarters of the object, starting from the top left corner and rolling out over halfway. To the right the word 'Reflectron' identified it as some kind of high tech mirror, and underneath a secondary screen, this one touch activated, contained prompts for editing the figures appearance.

The image captured in the screen showed Courier Six as Doctor Mitchell had put him back together, and though his memory was unclear, he could at least remember that this was close to how he had once looked.

His hair, a deep, dark black was swept back from his face, resting thick over his ears and growing down his neck a little ways. He'd never really let it get far down his neck; he preferred to keep it short and out of the way. His skin was paler than he was used to, but the tanned tinge of a Mexican heritage from one of his parents remained evident in his tone. His jaw was wide, covered in a layer of thick black stubble that to his amusement spoke of a sort of rugged wanderer vibe. It wasn't always that thick, but he wasn't the sort of man to obsess over grooming when he could have his entire face ripped off for not paying attention to the roads. The Mojave wasn't the sort of place that beauty or handsomeness would win your battles for you: a quick trigger finger, a working knowledge of which things to shoot in the groin, and at least two escape strategies would lend themselves to your continued survival far better.

He was pleased to see that his physique had remained, muscular and tall, sculpted out of a life of lonesome roads and situations where running fast and punching hard would ensure another hour's survival.

His eyes met themselves on the screen, a dark brown colour that watched with some trouble at the world. The source of their strain was evident above. Two scars rested on his forehead, both circular, where bullets had impacted his head, yet somehow not killed him. They overlapped, like an eclipse. Death must have been furious, Courier Six imagined.

"I don't recall those scars being there," he joked.

"Well I got most of it right," Mitchell responded, taking the reflectron as Six handed it back. "Stuff that mattered anyway. Thought you might like to keep your souvenirs there, a nice little reminder not to go provoking up the wrong people. Okay, no sense in keeping you in bed anymore. Let's see if we can get you on your feet."

The doctor stood up and offered an arm. The courier pushed the blankets back, let his legs slide over the edge of the mattress, reached out to grasp the Doctor's arm, and pulled himself up onto his legs. For a moment he wobbled, then his centre of gravity found itself once more, and he let go of the doctor's arm and stood still a moment.

"Good, why don't you walk down to the end of the room, over by that 'vigour tester' machine there? Take it slow now, it ain't a race," he instructed, stepping back to give the courier some room.

Giving himself a moment to keep steady, the courier began to stride forwards, slowly measuring each step. He moved faster as his confidence grew, and after a few moments testing himself he happily strode towards the thing that had looked like a set of drawers from far away. It came into view as a vigour tester, a funny little machine that supposedly took readings of the person's abilities and gave a read out from one to ten on a few aspects of their being. A way of testing if a man preferred brawn to brain, for example.

"Looking good so far!" Mitchell congratulated, directing him to the machine. "Go ahead and give that vigour tester a try. We'll learn right quick if you got back all your faculties."

The courier steadied himself on the tester as his vision blurred again. Already he knew what it would say about his perception, but that would return in time - he hoped. Grasping the handle on the machine he went through the motions described on the little screen, watching the lights flicker to supposedly tell him what kind of human being he was.

"Yep, that's a pretty standard score there. But after what you've been through, I'd say that's great news," the doctor commented as he observed the lights flicker and denote the courier's capabilities. He noted an above average score on the quick IQ gauge and a damaged perception score. He added, "Look at that, maybe them bullets done your brain some good."

Courier Six turned to him and cocked an eyebrow. Thankfully they were both still there. Just for a moment he adored the lines of hair that topped his eyes.

Doctor Mitchell changed the subject. "Well, we know your vitals are good, but that don't mean those bullets didn't leave you nuttier'n a Bighorner dropping. Whaddya say we take a seat on my couch, and we'll go through a couple o' questions? See if your dogs are still barkin'," he offered.

"Just a tick, doc," the courier replied, doing a few more experimental paces around the room.

"Of course. Take your time," the doctor replied. "I'll be just through here, come join me when you're ready."

Leaving him alone for the first time since the accident, the man who by all accounts should have been dead paced along the wooden floor. It was cool on his feet, soothing in a way. He let his mind wander to questions that had been put on hold while the doctor evaluated his condition. He'd been shot in the head. By who?

Flickers of the night were still in his head, but it was like the bullet had torn a great deal of his mind to pieces. The second one had scattered the shreds to the far recesses of his cranium. Still, he could remember bits. That night was one, and he'd dreamed of a day or two before the ambush as well. So he hadn't simply popped into existence then. That was nice to know. He did have parents, maybe even siblings. There was a life before he was shot in the face. It's the little things that comfort you, after all.

His attention slipped back to the material world as he noticed the bench that sat on the other side of the screen, and the few crates stacked against it. Invisible from the bed, sitting on top of the crates, was a gun, and immediately a spark ignited in Six's brain. He slipped over to it with pleasing coordination and picked it up. Immediately he knew it was broken. Just as fast, he could see what it was that needed fixing. A simple issue, the trigger had somehow been dislodged from the mechanism. It looked for the most part fine but the angle of the trigger was wrong. Instinctively the courier cast an eye around to look for something narrow, and spied a scalpel sitting on the gurney. Retrieving it he promptly jammed it into the narrow opening the trigger slotted into and twitched it a few times.

A click told him he had a gift for this sort of thing, and he grinned. Returned to working order, he allowed himself to take the weapon in. A submachine gun. Nine millimetres. A rustic looking weapon, black metal creating an 'F' with the barrel forming its base, and a little tunnel mounted over the weapon's maw allowed for more accurate aiming. Not that something that fired thirty rounds in ten seconds really needed accuracy.

He checked the clip, and noted it was empty. It wouldn't alarm the doctor if he walked into his office with it then.

"What the hell are you doing with that!" Mitchell demanded in shock, leaping from his seat, eyes widened.

Okay, so maybe he was incorrect.

"It's empty!" the courier quickly affirmed, disconnecting the empty clip and tossing it down on the table. "I just noticed it was broken, and I fixed it!"

More warily than he had at first, the doctor looked him over and slowly sat back down. "Well... that's... a relief," he managed, a little shaken by his patient suddenly producing a machine gun out of something that hadn't worked for about a year. "At least we know one of your skills other'n eating bullets. Here, uh, take a seat. We'll do a quick evaluation."

Apologetic, the courier moved over to the couch and sat down, again letting himself take in the new room. It looked like a living room, a fireplace jutting out from one wall, the couch he now sat on and a separate chair the doctor held being centrepieces, with a small square shaped table connecting them in an 'L' shape. Behind the courier's seat was a doorway, open, that led into a hallway, and opposite where he had come in was a bookshelf. While a painful number of books had since become ratty, torn and burned husks that could no longer share their knowledge with the modern world, a collection of Pre-War books still survived in the modern day and age.

He'd like to collect that knowledge, Courier Six thought to himself. To store the books safely and preserve the knowledge, and also to absorb it himself, to give him glimpses of a world he never knew. At the thought, a profound sorrow washed over the man, and he leaned back on the couch, letting out a heavy sigh. Was it just the thought of a world without the struggle just to survive to see tomorrow that had brought that on, or something else?

Doctor Mitchell continued to scrutinise him as his thoughts wrapped his mind up. He offered a small smile as Six turned back to him. A courier who spent too much time cooped up in his head. You'd think a couple of holes in the head would make it harder to stay in there. For most people it did anyway.

"Alright, I'm gonna say a word. I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind," Mitchell explained. The courier nodded, and he continued. "Dog."

The courier's mind ticked over a moment as he concentrated. Dog. Images of a chain link fence appeared, and a shaggy black animal prowling on the other side. "Companion," he answered. Dogs don't stay cute little puppies forever.

"House."

Images of a creaking structure the years had not been kind to. A hole gaped in one wall, letting the cold air in. Something growled, its vocal chords raw and decayed over too many lifetimes. It was coming through the wall, something outside that wanted in. As long as it didn't reach the side that lay exposed, all would be okay. They were safe. "Shelter."

"Night."

Inky blackness in the sky, made more stunning by a beautiful crescent moon. The feelings that surged back then were incomprehensible: too many at once. A flicker of incredible contentment came first, happiness he wasn't sure was possible without drugs, like an ocean. Time froze it, solidified it. Made it immovable, unbreakable. Then the sense of panic rushed in, sending fissures through it. It escalated, a despair-filled panic that pounded in his ears and sent his head ringing with agony again. The ocean, the great ice shelf that once contained all the happiness of the world exploded, raining down like the stars themselves, and in its place was only sorrow, gradually turning bitter. Hatred frothed within, and fuelled by emotional torment it grew enormous. All because of a single night. "The moon," Six forced through gritted teeth, bringing one hand up to rub his forehead.

The doctor sensed his distress, and paused to let him regain his composure. Giving a nod and a sigh, the courier motioned for him to go on. "Enemy," he said.

A female figure sitting beside him, talking. He couldn't hear the words, yet somehow he knew exactly what she was saying. He smiled as he thought of those flashes of memory. Whoever she was, he'd hung on to every word. He still did now, even though she didn't make a sound. "Ideology."

"Light."

His response was automatic this time. No thought, just words: "Dark."

"Mother."

Again, a profound sorrow. Loss. Not the loss of life, but a loss all the same, followed by confusion and emptiness. An acceptance that sometimes things happened, that what will be will be. That people were never truly constant in this world.

"Regret."

The questions continued for a little while, moving from word association and ending at several ink tests. The doctor scribbled it all down in one of the books that still had good paper, presumably what he kept records in. Every now and again the courier's hand would rise to his forehead and rub it awkwardly, the eclipse scars on his head causing a throb of pain.

Finally, his examination complete, the doctor seemed satisfied. "Alright, that about does it," he said, standing up and gesturing to the doorway into the hall. "Come with me, I'll see you out. Oh, and feel free to take that old shooter. You fixed it up, you might as well keep it."

Looking down at it, the courier shrugged. "It's okay, doc. I don't have much love for automatic weapons. No skill involved. I think I was a real stickler for skill," he commented.

"Suit yourself," Mitchell replied as Six followed him out into the hallway, turning left and walking past a closed door and another small set of shelves containing a number of books. He saw the end of the hall, but the doctor slid through a second closed doorway. "Hang on a second," he said, remembering something.

Courier Six paused and looked at the shelf. There was a toy car sitting on it alongside the books, as well as a couple of pencils and a harmonica. Great things, harmonicas. An entire evening of song in the right hands, and barely bigger than an expensive cigar. Not that he'd seen many of those. Then again, maybe he had. His wound throbbed again. He could already tell life as an amnesiac was going to be fun. After all, it got off to such a good start, shot in the head and all. Come to think of it, how had he gotten from the cemetery to here?

The doctor returned holding a bundle, wrapped up in a thick coat, a dark grey duster. "Here, these are yours. Was all you had on you when you was brought in," Mitchell explained.

He unfolded the duster to find the small stack of items within. A scrap of paper titled 'Mojave Express Delivery Order (6 of 6)' sat wrinkled on top of a handgun, a black, worn variant of Checker's sleek silver killer, a small stack of bottle caps which in the absence of much Old World cash still circulating had become the trading currency of the Mojave Desert and Vegas, and four syringes, each filled with some kind of red liquid and topped with miniature fuel gauges which were called 'Stimpaks', a powerful kind of medicine that sped up the body's natural healing processes considerably and applied a numbing effect to the area they were administered to. Feeling in the pockets of the coat he noted a few more items, clips for the pistol and rounds for a different kind of gun that he apparently no longer owned.

Putting the items down on the shelf the courier unfurled the coat to its full length. It had been dirtied by the affair in the graveyard, an already faded red stain at the front of the right shoulder told him which way he'd collapsed after the dirty deed had been done, and there were several holes here and there too, a few of which were unmistakably from bullets. The bottom was a little ragged, and had seen better days, but holding it at full length he could see it reached down to the top of his ankles, meaning in most cases it wasn't dragging along the ground.

"I hope you don't mind, but I gave the note a look. I thought it might help me find a next of kin. But it was just something about a platinum chip," the doctor explained further.

Six nodded and slid the coat over his shoulders, feeling an immensely familiar and reassuring warmth as his arms navigated into the sleeves. He loved this coat. It was more than just clothing to him, it was a legacy, and it was a legacy he gladly bore on his shoulders.

The doctor smiled as he watched him, and produced something else: an enormous wristwatch. At first glance, that was what it resembled at least.

"Well, if you're heading back out there, you ought to have this," Mitchell continued. He slid the courier's sleeve up on his left arm and fitted it over his forearm, sliding it up over its hand. He felt a pinprick, and suddenly the strap tightened to a level that ensured it wasn't being taken off, yet stopping just before it got uncomfortable. The courier marveled at this contraption now sealed to his arm. "They call it a Pip-Boy. I grew up in one of them vaults they made before the war. We all got one. Ain't much use to me now, but you might want such a thing, after what you been through. I know what it's like, having something taken from you."

The courier knew Mitchell spoke the truth, too. His tone changed as he spoke of loss, darker, like remembering it sucked the sunlight out of the world just enough to notice. It was a harsh world.

Trying not to draw attention to the doctor's comment, he instead examined the device on his arm. It was an amazing little machine, a scrolling wheel allowed him to sift through various menus represented on the small computer screen attached to his arm, and a selection of switches allowed further toggling. At first it showed a readout of his physical condition, displayed by a Vault Boy, the mascot for the vaults and their initiatives. So far everything seemed to check out. In addition he could take readings on foreign content in his bloodstream, which would take note of poisons or simple alcohol levels. Another section was dedicated to miscellaneous data; he could take notes on things, download audio recordings, and even pick up radio signals. Further inspection revealed two more features: a map of the Mojave Desert, likely downloaded from a computer somewhere, which displayed his current location (amazingly valuable for keeping track of his direction), and a Geiger counter, which in the modern world could only serve as excellent warning for when he was approaching something dangerous.

His attention was drawn back to his doctor once more as he shoved a second bundle of clothing into his hands. "These were yours too. The shirt got a bit stained, but the rest was in pretty good condition. I figured you'd want it back. Best put it back on so the locals don't pick on you for lackin' modesty," the doctor chuckled.

Sliding the dark grey coat off his shoulders with some hesitation, Six pulled himself back into the clothes he died in. They were worn in, and felt good to slide back into, despite the morbid fact that he'd previously been on his deathbed in them. Still, he could hardly fault a pair of pants for failing to stop shot to his head. The pants were thick hide, stitched together in numerous places and thickest from the knees down. Held against the lower legs by more stitching were a small set of chains, two on the left leg and one on the right. He had a suspicion that they were there purely for aesthetics. A pair of old, well scuffed and dirtied military boots found their way to his feet, and he tapped them on the floor a few times experimentally to get the feel for them. Familiar again. Next came the white shirt, which had a noticeable splotch of his own blood on it. He made a mental note to replace it; seeing a bullet eclipse on his forehead every day in the mirror was more than enough reminder of his should-be-deceased state. Over it went a long leather vest done up with four buttons, the last of which he left untouched, with a belt looping around the waist. The jacket continued down to cover his hips, stopping a little way above his knees. Like his pants, the vest had been stitched and repaired over time. It was hard to find high-class attire nowadays. A few pouches sat on the belt, but Six quickly discovered they were empty.

"Thanks for patching me up, doc," he said finally, grabbing the all-important duster once more. "Not every day this sorta thing happens, but if anyone ever takes a couple of lucky pot-shots at me again I'll know who to turn to."

"Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for," the doctor replied. Courier Six was a huge fan of the man already, but he may have been a bit biased considering the situation. "You should talk to Sunny Smiles before you leave town," Mitchell advised. "She'll likely be at the saloon, and she can help you get back in the saddle, so to speak. She's kind of the town's hunter. Best aim around here at least, when we got pest problems we turn to her."

Six nodded. "A bit of retraining couldn't hurt. See if I've still got the aim."

"I reckon some of the other folks down there might be able to help you too. And the metal fella, Victor, who pulled you outta your grave," he continued. "And like you said, you ever get hurt out there, come on back. I'll patch you right up. Thought times are tough, and if you're conscious enough to walk in here I think you'll be conscious enough to at least cover me the supply cost. Try not to get killed anymore."

"For you, Doc, I'll make an honest attempt," Six replied, rubbing his head again, wondering just what 'metal fella' meant.

He stepped forward, pulling the door open and stepping out into the world of the living.

The door clicked behind him and light seared his vision for a few moments. Goodsprings returned to the world in front of him, solidifying out of pure light. A few steps down Mitchell's front steps led to his mailbox and fence, an ancient statement of the idyllic Old World. The white paint on the pickets had long faded, and the mailbox was bent, the post standing it up splintered.

The house sat on a hill which led down onto an intersection where cracked road connected, diverging into three directions. One stretched south, passing down beyond a few houses, all the same plywood as the doctor's, some working as shelters, others missing too much to be used as anything but skeletal examples of former dwellings. They filled the southern area of Goodsprings, sprinkled about the southern section of town.

Behind the doctor's house, opposite the collection of former houses was a larger building ringed by a chain link fence, some of which had fallen down in recent times.

The other two roads moved west to east, crossing the 'T' of the intersection. At the corner a small wind pump. The east road ran along the two most noticeable buildings in the town, the first Six identified as a general store by the crates in front of it, and a little down the road was a larger building. Sitting in front of it was a sign that slowly swung in the breeze. The words on it said the same as the large neon ones that beamed from above the building's awning: Prospector Saloon. Visible behind it, a dirt track ran up a steep hill to a water tower that stood sentinel over the town's graveyard.

The west road ran up the hill passed Mitchell's house like the south, moving up past a pen filled with Bighorners and then turning north at a dilapidated gas station, a large round sign sitting on a post identifying the original owners as 'Poseidon Energy'. Their logo was a spherical object that the courier knew represented the world with a line running around it, stopping at the centre and diverging into three points to form an 'E' while also forming a trident, the ancient symbol of the being known as Poseidon.

Bighorners were an animal born after the war, a product of old creatures being forced to evolve into new ones in the wake of the world's destruction. Their namesake was obvious to look at one: enormous curled horns jutting from their heads. They seemed to be a mutated form of some kind of ram or sheep as the courier had once read in a book, though the exact kind he was unsure of.

"I'm surprisingly well read," the courier observed, striding down the hill and casting his eyes beyond Goodsprings, where the hills of the Mojave desert rolled away to a number of places he may or may not have once visited. The brown and gold of the sun-blasted dirt and sand was contrasted by the blue sky. Despite the radioactive nuclear hell that blanketed the world some two centuries prior, Vegas and its outlying area seemed to have done well in surviving the apocalypse.

The Mojave was a diamond amidst the ash.

The sound of a tire on concrete alerted the Courier to the metal fella. He turned his head down the southern road to see him rolling forwards on a single tire. A peculiar machine, moving about on a unicycle that was attached to a cylinder that rose into a wider cylinder, both grey, topped by what looked like a television set the size of a medium crate. On either side, half again the size of the television were a pair of shoulders from which two hose-like arms protruded, reminiscent of vacuum cleaner hoses ending in small cylinders with three flat metal digits that bent to form fingers hanging beneath them. On top was an aerial that spun as it picked up signals.

The face displayed on this machine's television screen was that of a beaming cowboy wearing the traditional hat of his kind, with a cigarette clutched in his mouth.

The strange mixture of rusty blue robot and beaming cartoon cowboy face was a little off-putting, but the courier had stepped into his path, and this robot, 'Victor' as the good doctor had called him, was now rolling up to say hello.

"Howdy pardner!" came the voice, a stereotypical cowboy tone with that metallic bite that accompanied most robotic voices. "Might I say, you are looking fit as a fiddle!"

Six grinned and looked down at himself. Some damaged vision perhaps, but everything else seemed to be just fine.

"Thanks," he replied. "So you're the one who pulled me up outta that grave then eh?"

"None other, and don't mention it. Always ready to lend a helping hand to a stranger in need," Victor replied, still grinning. Not that he could do anything else.

"How'd you end up finding me anyway?" the courier wondered aloud.

"I was out for a stroll that night when I heard the commotion up at the old bone orchard. Saw what looked like a bunch of bad eggs so I laid low. Once they'd run off I dug you up to see if you were still kicking. Turns out you were, so I hauled you off to the Doc right quick," Victor explained, the cowboy face beaming from cold metal.

"Well thanks. I'll see you around," Six said, and his grin toned back a notch, turning into an honest smile. Victor may have been an odd sight for a town like Goodsprings, and a little suspicious, but the fact remained that Six owed his life to the metal cowboy. For whatever reason he did, that was something to be grateful for.

"Happy trails!" Victor closed, resuming his stroll down the street without legs.

The man who knew himself only as Courier Six turned back towards the Prospector Saloon and, rubbing his forehead, stepped inside.

* * *

><p><em>~First Joker: Treated in various ways if allowed in play at all, a Joker can be considered an Ace, or in fact fill the role of any card the player chooses. The first joker has an equivalent in the tarot deck as 'The Fool', a card symbolising the beginning of an adventure, it depicts a wanderer not bound by conventional reason.<em>


	3. Second Hand: Beginner's Luck

Okay, I'll keep a spot up here for answering any questions in reviews like many stories I've seen on here do. Today it's just Agent 94, but it's early days yet and I'm expecting this to run for quite a while, so hopefully we'll pick up a few readers. Anyway, in answer to your review:

"The Courier isn't amnesiac, and the devs have said as much."

While I'm aware the Courier isn't suffering amnesia in the game, Mr. Avellone also made it quite clear he tried to avoid stepping on as many RPers toes as possible, and amnesia is a very viable story. The reason I went with this angle is to keep the plot interesting for people who already know the twists and turns as they are in the game. While I'm not keeping things strictly to how the game plays out, a lot of the key points such as what the Platinum Chip is, The Fort, Dead Money's backstory etc are already well known to most people who have played the game, and so those aspects of the story will hold no surprise. By introducing this amnesia, I've helped the story keep its surprises for the experiences players without forcing the Courier into being an archetypical 'mysterious stranger' type - he himself wishes to know his past as well, which means he's actively moving toward it instead of away from it. On the subject of your outlined points, all three of those things have been factored into Six's backstory already.

"Will there be pairings?"

Any pairings from the original game, ie Jack and Diane, are certainly unchanged. As for whether any original characters are going to interact in non-platonic ways, whether with other wild cards or established characters... well that would be telling ;D I assume you meant romantically, at least.

Anyway, it's not quite the weekend yet, but a certain someone asked nicely for another injection of story, and I like to think I'm a polite person, so here's the second installment!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Second Hand – Beginner's Luck<strong>_

_19th October 2281_

The dog growled as he stepped into the saloon, leaning forward and pushing its front paws outward in a threatening gesture.

Not thinking, the courier responded. "Cerberus, hush!" he said in a commanding tone.

A woman, previously with her back to him, turned to look at him. "Cheyenne, stay!" she commanded, clearly confused by the courier's outburst. "Don't worry, she won't bite unless I tell her to," she assured as the man before her scratched his beard and looked at the black and grey dog, its fur patchy over its hide. This was no mongrel.

She stood with her hip leaned against a pool table, partway through setting it up. The saloon around her kept the town's aura of a Pre-War time that held something of a cult status among many people. Windows sat along the right wall, letting golden light stream in over the two tables that still held a few partially drained glasses. The pool table on which the woman leaned took up most of the middle of the room, leaving space around it to play and squeeze past, and in the far corner sat a jukebox playing some old tunes. The left wall was dotted with pictures and posters.

A doorway to his immediate left led into the bar. He could see the corner of the counter jutting into his vision from where he stood. Then he realised the woman he was looking for was still looking at him cautiously. He'd walked into the saloon and done nothing but shush her dog with the wrong name.

"Doc Mitchell sent me. Said you could help me get back in the saddle?" the courier offered, making the assumption he'd managed to find Sunny straight away.

She wore leather armour, patched together with studs and stitches in some places, with only one sleeve that had a small sheet of metal crafted into a makeshift bracer on it, and the shoulders were padded up along with it. Her hair, blonde yet close to a red colour, was tied in a knot at the back of her head so as to keep it from her face, and a rifle of some kind peered over her shoulder, holstered there so that it could be quickly reached.

"Yeah, I guess there's a thing or two I could show you," Sunny said, realising who he was; the mysterious dead man Mitchell had managed to bring back from the brink. "Sounds like you need all the help you can get after what they done to you. Come outside behind the saloon."

She turned and walked through the doorway to the bar and continued out towards the back. Six followed, past the bar stools and tables that sat either side of the small amount of available floor space in the bar. Behind the counter on shelves were a number of bottles and an Old World cash register that no longer saw any use. A second radio sat on the shelf, but it was turned off so that it wouldn't compete with the jukebox. There were only two other people in the bar, one of them wearing overalls and the other wearing a leather vest with something that must have once seemed quite patriotic on his back; the US flag.

Sunny continued past them, to a door at the end of the bar that led out back. She pushed it open and stepped into the sun, and the courier followed.

As he moved to close the door, Cheyenne, Sunny's dog, slipped through and ran to join her companion. The courier smiled and followed to where Sunny waited at the fence of a small patch of maize crops, holding her rifle in one hand.

She passed it to him as he approached. "Now, see those sarsaparilla bottles on the fence there? Take this and try to hit a couple of 'em," she instructed.

Starting with the basics of course, the courier agreed. Hefting the rifle, he introduced himself to his new acquaintance; hefting it up and gripping the rifle's barrel with his other hand to steady it. He brought it up and checked down the sights.

Against the brick wall that made up the back of the Prospector, a fence extended a short way before turning back toward the wall. Sitting atop it was a number of empty bottles, some of them missing chunks, and behind the fence a few sat in the dirt wishing they could grow.

Six squeezed the trigger and another bottle joined the dirt gang underneath the fence with a bang. Another bang, and another comrade joined, missing his neck.

"Nice shot," Sunny observed, watching a third one drop.

"Bullets in your head or no bullets in your head, a man's gotta know how to handle a weapon," the courier replied, lining up another shot and firing.

"Well, that's a start. But I don't reckon you came to me to learn how to fight sarsaparilla bottles. Tell you what: I gotta go chase geckos away from our water supply anyway. Darn critters are attracted to it. Why don't you come along?" she offered, taking her rifle back and reloading it in the brief moment the courier mulled it over.

"Alright, I'm in. Nothing like a live test of your skills," he replied, drawing the black handgun from within his coat to let Sunny know he too held a weapon.

"Follow me," she replied, a grin flashing onto her face. Six knew that sort of grin. It was the kind that said trouble was on the way, and you were game. "It's just down to the southeast a short ways."

They set off at a quick pace, around the saloon and down the road, passing a broken cart and a few of the houses that the folk of Goodsprings inhabited. Beyond the southern end of the town the terrain became uneven, with rock faces rising up a metre, sometimes two on one side with a slope leading up the other. The area looked like someone dug through a clump of dirt, leaving a few fissures that had become natural over time. Followed by Cheyenne, the pair made their way towards it.

"So what's going on around here these days?" the courier asked as they moved, both to keep conversation and to learn a bit more about where he was.

"Nothing much around here besides the gang of guys who shot you. I hear tell of things stirring up elsewhere though," Sunny replied, one hand gesturing down the road and out across the golden brown desert.

"I don't remember much of the goings on around here," the courier admitted. "So anything you've got will help me out."

Sunny nodded sympathetically, her hazel eyes looking across at them and then down at Cheyenne, who kept pace between them. "Well I heard over the radio that Nelson, that town east near the river got overrun by those Legion fellas. The NCR's starting to panic, I think. Didn't expect the Legion to be so good at this," she explained.

The news wasn't new to the courier, he'd dreamed it already, and it confirmed that what had shown itself to his unconscious mind had in fact been a memory, and a very recent one at that.

The two names chimed a bell in his head as well. The 'NCR': New California Republic. A collection of towns that had banded together long after the war. They were trying to recreate something akin to the Old World government, with a senate of politicians who would spend all day debating things like troop allocation and public bathroom taxes. Their flag flapped in his mind briefly, one that they proudly displayed everywhere they could: a two-headed bear following a star, supposedly based on the old single-headed bear of the old California.

The other flag was the golden silhouette of a bull, rearing up on hind legs against a backdrop of red. Caesar's Legion. The NCR's rival force for control of the desert and its keystone claim to fame: Hoover Dam. Apparently one of the greatest sources of electricity still functioning in what remained of the Old World.

His thoughts were cut short by the guttural call of a gecko around the rock face he and Sunny were approaching. She moved close to the stone and motioned for him to do the same. He didn't need to be told twice. Cheyenne's tail rose.

"Hear that up on the ridge behind me there? We got some geckos to clear out. Bunch of little monsters is what they are. Seems like Doc Mitchell treats more gecko bites than anything else," she said quietly. "Let's see if we can get a little closer. If we move quietly we can get the jump on 'em. More likely to hit something vital that way."

It was coming back to him. Six dropped low and slipped around the rock face, his pistol in hand. Sunny patted him on the shoulder, and he slipped forward. The first gecko came into view.

A common pest after the war, geckos had since evolved to become larger and more ferocious, moving about on two legs, their mouths agape and ready to snap on the unsuspecting. They were a slightly purple colour, with white underbellies and bulging red eyes. Small frills extended out the sides of their heads just behind the eyes, and the creatures stood at about the height of a child. They looked like small lizard men.

Better yet, they had no idea the courier was even there until the first shot dropped a straggler. Up the ridge was another wind pump like the one on the Goodsprings corner sitting over a well with a water trough in front of it.

Three geckos, their heads previously leaned over the trough to drink the water that filled it looked to see their comrade hit the dirt, lifeless, before they scrambled to the attack, charging forward with their claws outstretched.

Another shot rang out and one of the geckos yelped, falling to the ground. The courier grinned. He aimed at another, but its head was suddenly punctured, courtesy of Sunny as she stepped forward with her rifle.

The third and fourth were closing fast, but it only took another two shots, one from each of the hunters, to put them both down. Cheyenne, put out of work by the two hunters, darted forward over the fallen creatures, finding one that still clung to life and seizing it by the throat. She hauled it up enough to shake its neck broken.

Exchanging grins of triumph, the courier and Sunny paused a moment to take a drink of water. It tasted good. Fresh, even.

"See, you've got the hang of it!" Sunny said with a beaming smile as Six partially drowned himself, finally realising just how dehydrated he was.

"Guns are no problem. Easy to use, point and shoot," the courier said casually. "It's the getting in close that's dangerous."

"Sure enough," Sunny agreed. "I reckon I owe you a bit then for helping me out. Don't have a lot, but here."

The courier stretched his arm out to meet Sunny's, and she placed a small collection of bottle caps in his hand. Three, and on closer inspection Courier Six found they bore the stylised name 'Nuka Cola'. This was longstanding knowledge to him, something deeply enough engraved into his head that the bullets hadn't shaken it loose: bottle caps made up currency in the Mojave Wasteland in two separate kinds. The kind he held, Nuka Cola Caps, were worth more, as in this region they were rarer than the commonplace Sunset Sarsaparilla Caps. Typically the caps could be found all over, and any unopened bottles of the Pre-War pop generally contained another yet to enter circulation.

The numbers were simple, a single Nuka Cap was worth twenty Sunset Caps. Therefore, Sunny had just paid him sixty caps in exchange for his aid. The number seemed surprisingly high to Six, but part of it he surmised was sympathy toward his injuries. His wound panged, and he just about missed Sunny's next sentence.

"I'm heading back now. Hope I didn't miss anything good on the jukebox. Cheyenne would never forgive me," Sunny chuckled, leaning down to pet the loyal creature, who nuzzled against her hand affectionately. "Hey, do me a favour. Trudy - she's the bartender up at the Prospector, kind of a mother to the town - she likes to meet newcomers. She'd be cross with me if I didn't ask you to poke your head in and say hi."

The courier thought back to the saloon, but didn't recall anyone behind the bar. Shrugging, he agreed. "Alright, I'll walk you back. Least I can do," he replied.

"Mighty kind of you," Sunny replied with a smile, starting back up the road towards Goodsprings' main street, if it could be called that.

"Think nothing of it. A little walk's the least I could do after your reintroduction to life," Six replied, falling into step beside her. "I'd say it kind of makes you a mother figure for me, but I wouldn't want to tarnish that pretty figure with the kind of title that implies any age over twenty."

Sunny giggled, and Six blinked a couple of times in mild surprise. Where had _that _come from? Before it went any further Sunny asked a different question.

"So what was all that about anyway? Victor's told me the story, and I talk to Mitchell a lot, but neither really knew why you ended up the way you did," she wondered aloud. After a moment's silence she added, "if you don't mind me asking."

The courier laughed. He already feared he'd get tired of his own story. "I don't honestly know, truth be told. Two bullets to the head didn't kill me, but it sure as hell rattled up whatever well-sorted library my mind used to be," he explained, tilting his head back and looking up into the blue Nevada sky. His coat fluttered out behind him and for the briefest of moments he was walking down a different road, the sky dark over his head, and thunder cracking in the distance. In his hand was a machete, the steel reflecting moonlight. He could hear growling, and smell death.

Then he was back, tripping over the step before finding the door to the saloon in front of him held open by Sunny. She was appraising him again, his lapse in concentration noticed. He shrugged it off, giving a reassuring smile that only partially worked, before stepping into the saloon once again.

This time there was a larger clientele.

"I'm done bein' nice! If you don't hand Ringo over soon, I'm gonna get my friends and we're burning this town to the ground, got it?"

The gruff voice wafted from in front of the counter, and as he stepped forward, brushing his black hair aside from where it began to infringe upon his vision, he saw the source of the voice.

Standing with his fists clenched, wearing navy blue with a thick black bulletproof vest over it was a dark man with short deep brown hair. A revolver was holstered at the right of his waist, and the back of his vest was lettered 'NCRCF'.

The voice that followed came from the woman standing in front of him, wearing a white dress that had been dirtied around the waist with a cream sweater. Her hair, black like Six's, was smoothed back over her ears.

"We'll keep that in mind," she replied steadily, making sure to show no hint of being rattled by the man's words. "Now if you're not going to buy something, get out."

The man stared at her a moment, and the woman Six knew must have been Trudy stared back unflinchingly. The man turned and walked for the door.

The courier strode past him, and the man, grumbling something about a lack of respect, refused to step out of the way to accomodate him, smacking into Six's shoulder as he passed.

"What the hell is your problem?" he demanded, wrenching the door open and slamming it behind him without waiting for a reply.

The courier chuckled, spinning the man's revolver in his hand and placing it down on the bar counter. "He apologises and hopes this will make up for the trouble he's caused," the courier explained, inventing a brief story to go with his theft of the man's weapon.

So he had sticky fingers, and quick ones to boot. He didn't take well to attempts to intimidate people who, from what he could see, where honest folk.

Courier Six chuckled as he sat down on one of the stools. So he was a bit of a slickster then? Good with a gun, great with his hands, a bit of a penchant for playing at charming? He scratched his chin in thought. He was a drifter, that much he could tell. Perhaps he was some sort of peacekeeper too, helping people where he could.

"Well, you've been causing quite a stir. Glad I finally got to meet you. Welcome to the Prospector Saloon," Trudy said happily, striding behind the counter and moving over to him. She placed both hands on the wooden bar and looked down at the gun Six had placed on the table. Her eyebrow raised as she realised what it was.

"Hey there, I'm Courier Six," the courier responded with a grin, extending his hand over the table.

"Trudy," she confirmed, reaching one hand over and shaking. "That's Cobb's gun, isn't it?"

Six continued grinning. "Why, no ma'am, that's your gun. Fella named Cobb might have owned it once, but it's been gifted, so to speak."

The bartender kept her eyes on the courier as she took hold of the weapon and placed it below the counter somewhere. "Least we know he won't come back for it. He'll be too humiliated to walk back in here asking where he dropped his revolver. Then again, he could just get his friends, get drunk and get mad, then shoot up the place."

"Trouble with the riff raff?" the courier enquired.

"It looks like our little town got itself dragged into the middle of something we don't want anything to do with," Trudy sighed.

Tilting his head, Six leaned forward. "Go on then," he pressed.

Trudy nodded. This courier seemed a reliable character. "About a week ago this trader, Ringo, comes into town. Survivor of an attack, he says. Bad men after him. Needs a place to hide. We figured he was just in shock, so we gave him a place to lie low. Didn't actually expect anyone to come after him," the bartender continued to explain.

One of the patrons hands rose. "You got a glass of scotch sitting around here anywhere?" he wondered.

Trudy strode over to him, reaching under the table and collecting a bottle of alcohol, pouring it into a glass and passing it over to the patron. "Some of the others, like Sunny, will probably stand up for Ringo if he asks for help. Which he hasn't," she continued, stepping back to occupy Six's view. "Personally, I hope he sneaks out of town one night and takes the Powder Gangers with him."

"Powder Gangers?" the courier wondered, the title unfamiliar to him.

"Chain gangs really. The NCR brought them in from California to work on the rail lines. Problem is, it turns out giving convicts a bunch of dynamite and blasting powder isn't a good idea. Was a big escape not too long ago. Some of 'em stuck together so they could make trouble. That's what we're dealing with now," the woman said, teaching the courier another fact about the Mojave that he either never knew or had recently unlearned.

Convicts with dynamite. Not exactly a stunning strategic move by the NCR, but it got them out of California itself. Toss your prisoners somewhere else, that way less people complain at home. A few others might get stepped on, but nobody's gonna notice if they're not paying taxes.

"This Ringo guy then, where is he now?"

Trudy looked at him, and he could tell she understood. "He's holed up at the abandoned gas station up the hill," she answered.

That was all he needed. "Nice to meet you, Trudy," he said honestly. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna go pay Ringo a visit."

With that, he turned and walked back towards the door. Sunny was sitting beside the jukebox listening to something while scratching Cheyenne behind the ear. He flashed a grin in her direction and stepped out into the sun.

Sitting out the front was an old man wearing a wide hat, with the same kind of overalls Mitchell had worn. "Howdy," he drawled through his white beard as the courier passed.

"Howdy," Courier Six replied, mimicking him as he passed, striding along the road towards the sign with the trident forming an 'E'.

Goodsprings, he could see, was home to good, honest people. They'd sheltered him and patched him up when he'd been murdered only a few nights ago and asked nothing in return. Now these 'Powder Gangers' thought they'd threaten the little town just because they had a few exploding sticks? He'd see how that played out now that he'd joined the game.

The door offered no resistance, but as he stepped inside he heard the metallic click of a gun being loaded and found himself looking at Ringo, with Ringo's gun pointed at his chest.

"That's close enough," the man warned. "Who are you, and what do you want with me?"

"If you're going to shoot, you'd better not miss," Courier Six warned. "I'm not here for gunplay, I'm here for the townsfolk."

Ringo noticeably relaxed, stowing the weapon again. Clearly he was twitchy then. Trusting, but twitchy. "Sorry about the gun. You just caught me off guard, that's all," he apologised. The courier sized him up. He wore a striped sweater and faded black pants. Around his neck was a dark red scarf. His features were young, early twenties at most. Light brown hair peaked over his forehead in a small crest that looked like it had once attempted to curl, only to be dissuaded.

"I heard you have a small problem, and its hurting the town. These people have done a lot for me, and I think this would be a good chance to repay them," the courier explained succinctly. "You need to get rid of Cobb."

"One Powder Ganger is no problem. I'll have a much bigger problem when his friends show up. There's no way I could handle all of them in a gunfight," Ringo said, tapping his pistol.

"So you need a hired gun. I make a bit of money, Goodsprings gets itself out of a crossfire it doesn't want, and you get the Gangers off your back. Everybody wins," Six offered.

"All I've got left on me is a handful of caps, but you get me out of this, and I'll make sure the Crimson Caravan pays you back. You've got my word," Ringo replied, hoping it was enough.

So he wasn't a one-Brahmin operation, Six noted. Crimson Caravan sounded like big business.

"If that's the going price, then that's what I'll take," Six said, grinning. "Cobb sounds like he's got a few friends though, two of us might be stretching things. I'll go talk to a few people and see if I can't gather a little support."

"Start with Sunny Smiles," Ringo offered. "She's been friendlier than most around here."

Courier Six grinned and spun on his heel. "I'll be back with a small army," he said, stepping outside again.

As he strode down the road, he marvelled at himself. Something inside him was telling him not to get too caught up in all this: repay his debt and then leave. The voice sounded reasonable. Like his voice, but with more gravel, more scars. The ghost of whatever he used to be.

But he still was that man, wasn't he? His face looked a little different, more scarred now, and he was missing things that he should be carrying, but as far as the world looking in was concerned he was who he was before, and as far as he was concerned he was…

He was…

The name eluded him all the way back to the Prospector, where he found Sunny still sitting by the jukebox, scratching the faithful dog behind its ear.

"Hi there," she greeted with a smile. "Sticking around Goodsprings a while longer?"

The darker him vacated, perhaps going to sit at the bar and drown himself in the sorrows of being a ghost watching a newbie pilot his old body. That freed Six up enough to give a smile in Sunny's direction.

"I can't just go leaving now that I've met such a strong young lady," he flirted, stepping over to the window and looking out into the golden brown day.

Sunny giggled again, and stopped scratching Cheyenne, much to the dog's dissatisfaction. "Don't give me that," was the answer.

He spread his arms and cut to the chase. "You caught me. I'm gonna help Ringo out of his little problem. Might need a little backup."

The speed with which Sunny responded startled him somewhat. "Say no more. I'm in."

"Just like that? For a random trader like Ringo?"

Sunny shook her head. "Joe Cobb talks about leaving us alone if we hand over Ringo, but I know his type," she explained with a slight jump in her tone that told Six more about Sunny than just about everything else he'd observed of her. "He and his friends will come after the town eventually."

The courier moved over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, giving the kind of smile that marked them comrades now. Looking over the walls of the same trench.

"Still, between you, me, and Ringo, we aren't exactly a force to be reckoned with," she went on, returning the smile. She looked down at her companion, and Six saw himself for a moment. "A lot of people here look up to Trudy. You should talk to her about this; if she's helping it might convince a lot of people around town to pitch in too. I know Easy Pete's got a stock of dynamite somewhere, and Chet just got a new shipment of leather armour we could borrow. I'll talk to them, see if I can't convince them to lend a hand."

"We might end up with a few wounded too. I know that Mitchell's a good man, and he'll help patch us up afterwards, but maybe some supplies for the fight will help. A little morphine to dull any pain, maybe a couple other needles too," Courier Six added.

"We'll meet with Ringo after we're all set," Sunny said, moving towards the saloon's door and tapping the butt of the gun strapped to her back. Cheyenne followed her out while the courier watched her exit.

Six strode around to the front of the bar, where Trudy stood. She'd overheard, he knew, but she had yet to speak up. Thinking it over, whether it was worth this kind of stand. He could tell she didn't share the same opinion as Sunny, or perhaps she simply still hoped that Cobb was the kind of man who would go away if he was ignored enough.

That wasn't the case though, and they both knew it. He seated himself and watched as Trudy served one of the townsfolk a glass of something and then slowly stepped back towards him. "So you're planning to take on Joe Cobb's gang," she summarised. "It's a big risk, but I suppose you have to do what you think is right."

He leaned forward. "Sunny and I can't do this alone. Can we count on you, Trudy?" His dark hair fell forward over his face, and he blew a jet of air up at it from his lips to clear his eyes.

Trudy gave him a wry smile. "I'm with you," she agreed. "Let me have a word with a few other folks and I'll see if I can't round up some more members for this militia we're creating."

"None of this getting pushed around business," the courier said with a grin. "Goodsprings, armed and dangerous."

"Go on, get outta here," Trudy replied, trying to stop her smile widening at the courier's enthusiasm.

He did just that, stepping out and once again looking out over the golden brown dunes. The people who shot him were out there, wandering somewhere with his package and his past. The sun had drifted into afternoon, and his scar panged yet again when he thought of it. He certainly couldn't stop and do this for every town, but he knew that after this Goodsprings would forever be a town close to his heart thanks to his head.

His fingers rapped on the doctor's door, and after a few moments Mitchell opened it. He looked him up and down with a mix of humour and professionalism. "Hadn't expected to hear from you again so soon," he said eventually, not without his humour. "How're you holding up?"

"Not bad at all doc. Haven't sprung a leak or popped a valve yet, but I'm not here for me," the courier replied in a similar tone. "Those convicts are getting bloodthirsty. As something of a thank you, I'm helping the town kick them out. I'm not asking for an extra gun arm, but do you think we could get a few supplies? It'll be mighty hard to haul someone up the hill here if the Gangers or whatever they're calling 'em get a few good shots in, and a little morphine would go a long way to keeping some of the less seasoned folk alright."

Mitchell sighed as he took it in. "Seems like no matter where I go it's always the same. Folks just never leave each other alone. My supplies are scarce, but I'll give you what I can spare," he offered, turning and walking back into his home. He left the door ajar, letting Six see into the dimly lit beyond.

"Anything's a big help, doc," he said. "Hopefully we won't have an excuse to use any of it."

The doctor returned down the dark corridor holding a small collection of needles. Four syringes of morphine, and the same amount in stimpaks. He placed them in a small bag and passed them to the courier.

"Be very careful about reaching in there. Stimpak sickness is bad enough, but that and morphine will be the death of you in the wrong context," he warned.

Six nodded seriously. He didn't recall what exactly stimpak sickness was, but he knew it wasn't something he wanted. "You be careful too, doc. Hopefully things will go alright, but don't go poking your head out till you know it's safe, or Goodsprings might lose one of their most important public services."

Mitchell chuckled and turned, closing the door behind him.

He still had a little time, so he decided to take a stroll. He walked past the saloon, moving up the dirt road that made its way up the hill atop which the water tower sat. Below it he saw the wooden grave markers, and as he trudged up towards it, he saw a 'danger!' sign at the edge.

Something coloured amber slipped from a bush and moved towards him, and Six instinctively grabbed the pistol and fired, sending a bullet through the bark scorpion, which squeaked and dropped, dead.

He stepped over it, examining the creature. Larger than the pictures he'd seen in books of the Old World scorpions, but still poisonous. Their claws were considerable, and their tails, tipped with those venomous hooks, looked as dangerous as they were. This particular bark scorpion was about the size of his torso, which was about average, he recalled.

Moving on, he reached the top of the hill and looked out over the haphazardly arranged graves. Some were fresh, mounds still evident, while others were just dirt amongst dirt. He strode past them, looking over the wooden markers that spoke the names of people he didn't know.

Then he saw it, and his heart stopped for a few moments. His wound lanced with a searing pain and a voice swam through his mind.

"_Sorry you got twisted up in this scene."_

The man in the suit and his gang buddies. He couldn't afford to let them get too far. It was afternoon now, and it wouldn't be wise to travel the roads at night, but early in the morning he would ask Trudy to point him in the right direction and then move without delay. He owed Goodsprings his life, but that didn't change the score.

He knelt beside his own grave, still fresh. The pile of dirt Victor had pulled off him sat beside the rectangular hole in the ground, only a foot deep. A shallow grave. Naturally.

Crushed into the dirt at the foot of the grave, barely noticeable, he could see a cigarette butt. He remembered the man with the gun stamping it in there.

"_Time to cash out."_

He'd cash that bastard out all right. Murdered over a goddamn poker chip. He didn't even play poker.

Staring down into his bed of mortality, Six left the world for a few minutes, just absorbing the world and his own death alongside the subsequent rebirth.

How many people could take two bullets to the head and then rise from the grave? The odds must have been staggering. Maybe he was just some kind of mutant who'd developed a head thicker than the best tanned leather.

"_The game was rigged from the start."_

In who's favour?

Gunfire told him that something more important was going on now though. Looking back down towards Goodsprings he could see the blue jackets of the convicts as they made a move for the saloon. The townsfolk had hastily erected some cover out of a wagon and a few old motorcycles.

Without waiting a moment the courier bolted down the hill towards Goodspring's makeshift trench to lend a hand. As he came down the slope he could see Sunny and Ringo running from the gas station to the same place.

This had happened sooner than expected. Cobb must have seen them preparing, decided to strike early before they were proper organised. Courier Six growled. It was a good plan. Simple, but effective: easily one of the best kinds.

His pistol was in hand, nearly a full clip still ready to unload, and whether some of the more peaceful townsfolk wanted it or not, things were going down in a violent way.

They were coming up the road from the south, along the eastern edge of the houses, armed with the same kind of garden-variety handgun Six himself was holding. From a distance he saw what could only be dynamite in the hands of two, just to make things worse.

They were armed about as well as the people of Goodsprings then, but probably more seasoned in the trade. A little worried, but far from dissuaded, the Courier ducked behind one of the motorcycles to find Trudy peering over it, still wearing her dress.

"Sunny said something about leather armour from the shopkeep. Why aren't you wearing any?" he asked immediately, as Sunny and Ringo joined them.

Trudy shook her head. "A few people already in there getting suited up. Didn't have time to get everyone into the stuff, so I let everyone else go first. I'll just stick to being careful in the cover. I'm no fighter," she explained.

Nodding, Six pulled the bag out of his pocket and tipped it, dropping the contents onto the saloon's wooden doorstep. "There are four stimpaks and four syringes of morphine here. If someone gets shot, give 'em one of each if it's bad. If they can still fight don't be afraid to tell them to tough it out," he instructed.

"Got it. I'll make sure everyone's doing okay," Trudy replied, before passing Cobb's six shooter back to the courier. "You can probably use this better than I can."

Taking it, Courier Six twirled it on his finger and couldn't help but agree. "Here then, trade you," he offered, placing his handgun in Trudy's palm. "I'll have it back later, but don't be afraid to use up the ammo."

A few townsfolk had moved to join them, and the Powder Gangers were upon them, covering themselves with the ruins of one of the house on the corner opposite the Prospector and firing at them.

"Damn Gangers. Get off my back!" Ringo shouted, leaning up over the overturned cart and firing a few rounds of his own. Sunny peered out the side with her rifle, and with an expertise Six had to admire she scored a shot on one man straight away, blasting his cheek clean open as he moved from cover.

His scream roused Goodsprings, and they rallied, determined to show Joe Cobb they weren't to be messed with.

Six looked over the motorbike, a two-century-old husk that still had enough metal to keep him from harm, and balanced the revolver's barrel over the gas tank. One Powder Ganger stood up, thinking himself some kind of he-man with a stick of lit dynamite in his hand.

One glorious revolver round thundered through his flesh and he dropped like a rock, and so did the stick of dynamite he held. A few seconds later an explosion subjected them all to a gruesome sight.

Too many grimaced and turned away from it; another Ganger took the chance to throw a stick in earnest. The aim wasn't perfect, which kept people from noticing, but the last person to be geared up in leather armour was caught running for cover. A bullet whizzed into their leg, and as Trudy prepared to move to her rescue the stick of dynamite threw her like a ragdoll down the alley between the saloon and the general store.

As fast as it had come, the townsfolk's momentum slowed again, and a small exchange of gunfire went on for a minute further without casualties. Six picked his shots carefully, blasting one man in the side and another in his gun hand.

Ringo leaned over the cart again and fired a round. His aim was excellent, the man he aimed at went down with a gunshot punching through his head a little above the ear, but Cobb had spied the Crimson Caravan trader, and had made a personal mission of taking him out. A bullet shot into Ringo's arm, digging along his forearm and stopping in his elbow.

Trudy was quick to dart across with the medical equipment for him, and Sunny took the opportunity to fire at Cobb, who yelled something partially incomprehensible but unmistakably insulting before vanishing behind cover in a rather undignified and panicked fashion.

An explosion knocked a beam loose and sent a portion of the roof crashing down over one of the few remaining convicts, and the town realised that they had superior numbers, and Cobb only had two more men alongside him, neither of which showed much loyalty.

Courier Six blew one's brains out all over the wall when he tried to run, grinning with murderous delight at the skilled shot.

One of the townsfolk proved himself a lucky shot as well, shooting the second man clean in the rear end as he tried to run. He yelped, tripped over, and was subjected to the wrath of Goodsprings as a few people took target practice.

The gunfire died, and the people of Goodsprings looked at each other in shock. The man with the rifle dropped it and dashed into the alley to check up on the woman, and Trudy followed a moment later, but it didn't look good.

Ringo cradled his injured gun arm, softly groaning as the morphine took effect. Courier Six and Sunny exchanged looks, before creeping slowly towards Cobb's cover. By now he'd realised his failure.

Goodsprings wouldn't have to worry about Powder Gangers after this display of force. The gunshot that echoed through Goodsprings told them all how Cobb admitted defeat.

* * *

><p><em>~Beginner's Luck: A term used to describe the phenomena in which a new player experiences an unnatural amount of luck or success when they realistically shouldn't.<em>


	4. Third Hand: Chase

Quick Q&A: Joe Sumbode asks "You've probably got a life, maybe even some kind of family, but I've noticed you boasting on another site that you're already past the tenth hand. Why not update quicker?"

Joe, there's something I've learned when it comes to writing: there will always be a period of time that surfaces where I get no writing done. Maybe some kind of emotional curveball will knock me on my ass and it'll take a fortnight to sort myself out before I feel up to writing again. Maybe I'll just get bogged down with work and need to focus on that. Maybe the internet will spontaneously combust at my house and the only time I'll get to access the site will be for twenty minutes at a friend's place, long enough to upload a chapter but not write anything of substance.

Basically, I know that somewhere down the line I'll run into something that will stop me writing. It's inevitable on long-term projects, and I see it happen in webcams or other stories all the time. While they might understand, I know the fans are never happy when the author misses a regularly scheduled update, so rather than accidentally leave you guys in the dark for two weeks on a massive cliffhanger until you lose interest, I've set myself an update schedule I know I can keep and made sure I had a nice buffer zone built up. This way you'll never even notice if I run into trouble on the road, because I should have at least a month to recover and continue putting out new material.

A bit long winded of an answer to a simple question, but I like to talk. I'm sure you understand.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Third Hand – Chase<strong>_

_Sometime early 2276_

I parried the blow and moved backwards. She advanced, striking again, this one a harsh move aiming downwards. This time I didn't try to block, instead I slipped aside, letting the baton soar towards the ground. Taking advantage of the momentum she was trying to cancel, I slapped her across the arm with my own weapon and stepped back as she regained herself.

"Had enough yet?" I baited, slapping the baton against my palm and readying for her next attack.

As predicted, it flowed forth, and she hurtled towards me in an attack I'd seen so many times by now, a lunge that swung whatever weapon she was using in a diagonal arc, going above the shoulder just enough to skip over it while aiming straight for a critical vein in the neck. With a blunt weapon it could knock a person out with enough force, but I'd seen it applied with a bladed weapon, and the results were far gorier.

While the right arm moved to make this swipe the left swung in to try and chop the reverse side of my neck with her hand.

The defiant roar that went with it was supposed to throw a foe off balance, leaving them disorientated and susceptible to the quick and lethal attack.

But as I said, I'd met this assault many times before. I'd used it myself, both against her and against others, and I knew how to perform it as well as I knew how to counter it.

I ducked low and threw myself up into her, pushing my hands into her stomach and throwing her over me. The result wasn't graceful, but it was successful as intended. I stumbled forward and then spun, ready for anything. She rolled as she hit the dirt, as experienced in being countered as she was at performing the assault.

The scratches on her shoulders counted a few new friends, and our eyes met as she stood back up. There was no malice in them, quite the opposite. There was pride, both in herself and in me.

She dropped the old, scuffed police baton that we used for sparring in the camp, turned away and walked out of the ring. Grinning, I dropped the one I held for the others to pick up and use and followed her.

Passing through the gate new recruits would wander through for their initiation; I passed a hulking man that I knew personally.

His hair was long, blonde, and he clapped as I walked. "You perfected that block alright," he said approvingly. "Gotta say, you took to this up close and personal stuff like a fly to shit."

"I like to think I'm more dangerous than a shitty fly," I replied with the kind of grin I often had while speaking with this man. "Hopefully a little more intimidating too. Don't get me wrong, I like being unassuming, helps you sneak around, it's easier to knife a guy under the ribs, but I want some instant respect!"

Clearly, I was something of a wannabe up-and-comer. In some ways I'd managed to cement a reputation though. They didn't exactly fear what I could do, but they knew I was skilled. A crack shot, which was always needed, and I'd taken to the melee training Alyssa had given me like… well, like a fly to shit.

The enormous man's hand clapped me in the back of the head, and I stumbled forward. "The hell was that for?" I demanded.

"Instant respect," he replied in that deep, finely ground voice.

One of the many lessons I learned about him: don't get uppity.

We strolled through the canyon for some time silently. Alongside Alyssa, Chance had helped me integrate into the Khans when I'd arrived not so long ago. It hadn't been the kind of life I'd been expecting when I stepped into Red Rock Canyon, but after the savage beating that they called an initiation ritual I'd recovered – eventually – and started to learn how to fight and survive.

More than once the higher members of Khan society had used me to run drugs to various locations. I'd gotten pretty good at it.

After doing that a few times I'd even taken a casual job as a courier down in Primm. I mean, if I could run drugs through Outer Vegas, it couldn't be that hard to run packages past more dangerous spots. Couriers usually carried legitimate deliveries. I carried highly addictive chemicals past the Fiends.

…in retrospect, that sounds unbelievably retarded.

Chance and I reached a crest at the upper level of the canyon, and as I turned to look out over what had been home for the past few years, I spotted another two members of my extended family down in the ring, having picked up the batons Alyssa and I used and begun training on their own.

"We've got another job coming up for you," Chance said. "This one's over to Bitter Springs."

I looked at him, and an eyebrow cocked. Bitter Springs was the primary settlement of the Khans. We never needed to run packages back and forth because full parties of warriors would carry any needed supplies once every few months. "This a personal request, Chance?" I asked.

I could hear him exhale behind me as I watched the two in the ring sparring. He'd expected me to let him point out that connection.

"My mother," Chance admitted. "She's old, that arm of hers hurts something bad these days. Usually she can handle it, but these nights can get pretty cold this time of year. I want to run a pack of morphine over to her, but Papa Khan's got me harassing the Quarry due south."

"It's a long way to go," I pointed out. "Past Vegas. Lots of patrols up that way. You're gonna send me with a heavy package too, I'll bet."

Alyssa was walking back into the canyon from the road that slid out into the desert expanse. Even from here I could see her features. The leather jacket she wore religiously, over the torn and dirtied white t-shirt that hugged her form… nicely. Her hair spiked out in two diagonal mohawks in a style she called 'fallen angel' after stories she'd heard on the road years past. Her legs were clad in what once would have been called jeans, but were now cut off just above the knees, and torn up the sides by countless fights. Nice legs, even from here.

"I'll make it up to you," Chance assured. "You'd be doing me a hell of a favour, I'm not about to forget it."

"What can I say?" I finally replied. "I'm flattered. Apparently I'm the most trusted drug runner to roll with the Great Khans."

Chance clouted me another one over the back of the head, and I shoved both hands into the dirt to stop myself careering over the crest and through the roof of a tent below me. "Have some more respect," he said. It sounded nigh indistinguishable from his 'don't get uppity' voice, but I'd learned to pick up the subtle differences. This time it was genuine respect. I really must have been a good drug runner.

"So what do you say?" he demanded. "Take a package to Bitter Springs for me?"

I stood up, turning to face the enormous man that was Chance, his arms twice the size of mine crossed over his chest and his eyes staring at me intently, waiting for my answer. What else would I say?

"I'm game."

_~ The Tops: You'll dig us, Baby, we're The Tops! ~_

_21__st__ October 2281_

He strode down the road, his coat fluttering in the gentle breeze as he went. It was a warm day, the sun beat down relentlessly, but somehow there was enough of a chill in the air to help guard against it.

Six had set out early after an evening of celebration over the town's successful defence. He'd been given a place to sleep in an old shack down the road from the doctor's home, apparently where Victor's former 'owner' had once resided. Whoever he was, he'd lived well, and the house was full of knick-knacks, books, scrap, and various other items.

The bed had even been clean, though the whole shack had a layer of dust about it that the courier suspected was a product of years without an inhabitant.

Early in the morning he'd risen, slipped his long grey coat on, and stepped out the door carrying his entire belongings on his back, striding down the road to the saloon once more to collect a few bottles of water, not all of them entirely clean. Trudy had insisted he take three without charge, and not one to argue with a good thing, Six had accepted. It wouldn't be cold by the time he needed it, but it would stave off dehydration, and that was infinitely more important than the small comforts.

He'd asked about the men who had killed him during the night's celebrations, explaining he'd put it off until after his favour was repaid. Happy to help, Trudy had pointed him in the direction of Primm, a town about half a day down the road. Apparently the gang, the Great Khans, had been moving down south after a lot of arguing about where they were going.

She'd gone on to explain that the northern roads had fallen prey to some dangerous beasts. The northern roads had always been home to dangerous creatures, which she explained were wasps of some sort, but recently the Interstate 15 - nowadays referred to as 'Long 15' - had been blocked off by a nest of creatures called Deathclaws, which had taken up residence in a quarry along the road, and spilled out along it, leaving much of the northern road impassable to anyone who wasn't wearing several tonnes of armour and wielding a minigun.

Courier Six didn't remember what a Deathclaw was in specifics, but his instincts at just the mention of them told him he wasn't going north with all he had on him now.

So his feet had taken him south, bidding one last farewell to Sunny, Trudy, Mitchell and Victor with a heartfelt 'thank you' as well.

The road beyond Goodsprings was desolate, but Primm etched itself out over the hills after the first few hours walking. Convicts had occasionally appeared along the side of the road, eyeing him darkly as he passed, sizing up whether it was worth it to shake down this traveller.

One group had decided to give it a try, an attempt that had ended with one gurgling on the floor, blood dripping off Six's straight razor, and bullet straight through the heart at point blank range for another, and the last limping away with a bullet in his leg and another in his shoulder blade.

Sometimes he spotted more geckos amongst the hills to the west, darting about, feeding on the corpses of animals or even other gecko. They never ventured close.

When the sun had finally set upon his wandering feet he'd camped off the road, concealing his fire behind a boulder and sleeping lightly in case he needed a quick waking. Morning had arrived without incident though, and as the clouds rolled across the sky, the courier had risen and continued his trek, eating a conservative breakfast of xander root as he walked. It hadn't tasted fantastic, but it had stopped the growling of his stomach.

With plenty of time alone with nothing but the sound of his feet on the cracked concrete road Six had decided to get to know his Pip-Boy, the oversized wristwatch that sported a dozen or more features.

He'd spent some time examining the region map which still held locations added during its time in service to the good doctor, notably New Vegas itself, with a small mark denoting 'Vault 21', presumably the one Mitchell grew up in. The road noted a number of other settlements, with 'Freeside' occupying a section of area to the north and east of Vegas, and aptly named 'Westside' rounding off the other half of north and, obviously, the west. Primm had been marked as well, and the marker telling Six where he was slowly trucked along towards it as he walked.

In addition, he found a section for notes, which Mitchell had cleared out, but kindly left a small explanation of how to use the feature, explaining how the Pip-Boy could categorise them and sort them by most recent, importance, and so on. He'd added that the gadget was actually capable of downloading vast amounts of data and storing it there, and it had both a speaker and microphone, allowing it to play back downloaded messages or record new ones.

Experimenting with it, Six had begun to record recounts of his dreams, which seemed to be his subconscious mind's way of letting his memories trickle back in. He figured if another pair of bullets happened to find him, he'd at least like some written accounts of who he was, even if his name was still listed as 'Courier Six'.

What had given him more enjoyment than that though was when he'd ticked over and found the radio. Some were marked with titles, others frequencies, and Courier Six quickly found he could give the frequencies personalised names for easy reference. The first one that stood out was 'Mojave Music Radio', immediately followed by 'Radio New Vegas'.

It made him about as quiet as a Bighorner in mating season, but the road was largely empty and flat in nearly every direction, so he threw caution to the wind, turned the volume up, and happily strode along listening to a variety of songs, occasionally interjected by the sound of the radio personality that ran Radio New Vegas, simply calling himself 'Mr. New Vegas'.

His ears perked up as another song died down and Mr. New Vegas opened another interlude between songs.

"You know, the women of New Vegas ask me a lot if there's a Mrs. New Vegas. Well of course there is. You're her. And you're still as perfect as the day we met," he opened his segment, charming as always. Six chuckled and looked down at himself. He sure as hell didn't feel like 'Mrs. New Vegas'.

"Whoops! Better put on my newsman fedora!" he quickly added, before dropping to his reporting tone. "Rumours persist about a Super Mutant refuge nestled high in the ski lodge to the northwest. If you should find it do not, repeat, DO NOT belittle a Super Mutant for taking the bunny slope."

Even the news on this station was enjoyable to listen to.

"In addition, troubling news from Primm, as merchants report a large presence of armed and unsavoury figures patrolling the town. Residents are no where to be found."

Now it wasn't quite as enjoyable to listen to.

Six sighed and looked ahead to the town on the horizon. He could see the crumbling wooden frame of a roller coaster that had long since stopped working rise above the buildings of the town. "What have we got going on now?" he wondered. Mr. New Vegas kept talking from his spot on Six's arm.

"Got some Dean Martin coming up talking about the greatest feeling in the world, Love. Ain't That a Kick in the Head? It sure is, Deano, it sure is."

The song began to play, but Six had zoned out, staring at the town he was slowly nearing. Armed and unsavoury figures sounded bad enough, but no residents could mean nobody to tell him where his old friends had gone.

Hopefully the town hadn't been completely ransacked then.

The song continued to play as he walked, but his mind wandered now, not listening to the song that part of his mind noted he'd accidentally quoted just yesterday. His hand was at his hip and it stayed there, ready to blast anything that could burst from what little flora sat on the roadside.

"Try and remember," he told himself, willing his memory back.

He'd tried to recall things last night as the town celebrated, getting themselves drunk, which Six had smiled and shaken his head at. Alcohol didn't interest him, the immediate benefits were outweighed by the immediate and short term ramifications. A gunfight with a hangover was just asking for death, and if anyone survived it that's exactly what they'd be doing when they could finally hear themselves over the ringing in their ears and the army waging war on their skull.

Personal experiences lend that to him, or watching it happen to someone else? He'd tried to figure it out then, and maybe the dream he'd had was spurred by those questions, or perhaps just the mention of Khans.

He shook himself off and tried to sift through everything again. Some time ago he'd been a part of that gang. Maybe that's why they'd killed him. Something had happened, he'd left, and they'd hunted him.

But he couldn't remember, damn it!

All that revealed itself to his submerged mind were the ripples of events beneath the water. Something happened deep in the recesses of his mind, and his brain consciously processed only the waves that spread out from it, commonly in the form of flares of emotion.

His own head had become a locked box, and he no longer had the key.

He tried to concentrate on the day before he had been shot, or the day that led up to that evening, but little beyond waking up, bound and captive, returned to him.

The radio kept playing, but he wasn't listening anymore, and after a short while he turned it off, preferring the sound of his boots against the road.

A campfire not far out of Primm alerted him to another presence on the road. Squinting, he could make out figured, but the blue colour of the convict vest was not evident. These figures, while hard to see clearly, seemed to blend into the brown of the desert better, only clearly defined against the faded white concrete.

In broad daylight too.

He kept moving though, if they started firing he didn't have anywhere to take cover anyway, and there was no guarantee unsavoury meant unreasonable.

As they came into view he noted that amidst the dilapidated buildings, most of which were missing roofs, stood a few small pillboxes made out of scrap iron cobbled together. Fluttering above the ruined remains of the Old World like a tree rising from a barren garden was a flag. A golden bear, distinguished by having two heads, stood proudly upon it, with a single red star lighting the sky above it.

That sparked general knowledge triggered back in Goodsprings. NCR: New California Republic. One of the hands reaching for the Mojave.

Striding towards him as he made his way down the street, Six identified a soldier, dressed in the drab brown of the military and wearing a brimmed grunt helmet made for reducing the damage a bullet could do.

"Hey, where the hell do you think you're going?" the soldier demanded, approaching one of the small pillboxes that faced down the road toward Goodsprings. "Primm is off limits."

Six looked him up and down. The soldier looked back wearily. He didn't look like he knew much about combat. He didn't look like he'd so much as fired at a hostile foe once. But maybe that was why he was guarding the checkpoint instead of plotting attacks on Primm. Mentally shrugging, he opened his mouth and spoke. "Why might that be?"

The soldier puffed himself up. He was young, younger than Six by a few years. However old Six was, exactly. "Some convicts from up the road have taken over the town. Everyone inside is either dead or in hiding," he declared as though it were a good thing.

That explained it well enough. "And?" the courier asked rhetorically, not expecting the soldier to carry on.

"There are two tribes of raiders causing trouble in this area as well. You'd be safer heading back up to Goodsprings."

Raiders and explosive raiders. With Khans on the horizon. Heated days in the Mojave, Six mused.

"So what are you guys doing about it?" the courier asked. "Preparing to kick the convicts out?"

"We'd love to, but they don't fall under our jurisdiction. Even if they did we're in no shape to protect them," the young soldier answered rather disappointingly.

"Really? 'Jurisdiction'?" he wondered aloud. "They get taken over by convicts and you can't help them?"

The soldier shook his head. "If you've got a problem you should speak to Lieutenant Hayes. Just stay west of the overpass if you don't wanna get shot."

Shrugging, Six stepped forward towards the small outpost. The soldier, done warning off this drifter, turned and walked away again, muttering something about the convicts not being his problem.

Looking about throughout the buildings, Six began to understand what the young soldier meant when he said the little detachment was without the means to defend Primm. There couldn't have been more than five men in the entire camp.

The sun was still taking its time in its descent, and what few soldiers were pacing the small streets offered no words of help when the courier enquired about Great Khans or the man in the suit. The only thing he received instead was a deal of dislike directed at the Khans, which he learned (and remembered) were separate from the Great Khans: originally the Khans had been raiders, and decades had been spent harrying the New California Republic and its settlements. The 'Great Khans' were an offshoot, more a tribe than just a gang of raiders. Aggressive in their actions still, but less actively assaulting settlements.

Glancing over the bridge, he could see the town on silent lockdown, waiting for someone to step into its dangerous depths. A silhouette strolled through an intersection, cloaked in the building's shadow but clearly holding a firearm.

Away to the west a coyote howled and several more met the call.

The courier sat in the ruins of what had once, presumably, been a small village to sit on the other side of Primm, or an edge of the city's expansion as it finally burped its population over the highway that had previously kept it in check. Finally unable to take sitting around a moment more, he asked a soldier where he could find the Lieutenant and strode down to the small tent sitting opposite a firepit.

What greeted him was a man dressed in drab olive with an only slightly more impressive plate of armour over his chest of some more durable form of plastic held on by what looked like salvaged belts and their buckles. The bags under his eyes told Six what kind of job it was holding this little camp together, or perhaps how able this 'Hayes' was in performing the task. A golden two-headed bear strode across the olive beret sitting over his military buzz-cut.

"I hear you're the man to talk to about Primm," Six stated as he approached the remains of the previous night's fire.

Hayes looked up at him from the clip board he was reviewing, disinterest in his eyes. "And you would be?" he questioned.

"A man who'd very much like information," the courier responded. "A courier tracking down a thief. Perhaps you saw him head through."

"We don't stop to ask many people if they're carrying stolen goods. I'm sure though, if you head across the bridge, you'll find _a _thief. Whether it's _the _thief is unlikely," Hayes answered, his eyes never losing the uncaring shade.

"A man in a checkered suit. Hard to miss I'd say, especially since he was supposed to be flanked by Great Khans. I'm hearing a lot of dislike for them from the five or so men you've got holding this little outpost together. All I want to know is where he is, or where he was last heading," the courier summed up quickly. The lieutenant didn't want his apparently precious time wasted, and while Six didn't think it looked like he was doing much, arguing that point wouldn't get him any closer to tracking down this man.

The dullness of Hayes' eyes didn't even flicker. "My boys and I would know if Khans had passed through here," he declared without any confidence. "The convicts haven't had control of the town long, and so we've only been here about two days."

Nothing, then. Courier Six sighed. "Thanks anyway," he said as a measure of politeness.

Hayes grunted and resumed ignoring him as he turned and strode away from the tent.

A few rounds of gunfire cracked through the city, setting everyone on edge, but they didn't seem to be directed at anyone set up at the checkpoint across the bridge. Along with everyone else, Six hoped the Gangers had begun fighting amongst themselves.

He needed to speak with someone in Primm. Someone who had seen the man in the suit and his tribal gangster friends pass through. But walking into the town now would be dangerous. The bridge would be watched if the Powder Gangers were anything close to organised. Night would be his best chance to sneak in and find something.

That left him with just the question of how to spend the time until then. The 'soldiers' that manned the little outpost didn't make for very good conversation, with half of them being too jittery about the convicts on the other side of the road and the other half displaying the cocky soldier front to make their total lack of experience seem less noticeable.

Reaching into his coat Six drew the small black pistol he'd carried with him so far and studied it. It was young; not the battle scarred, jury rigged kind of pistol from before the war, but a newer make born from what remained of schematics and reverse engineering experiments.

This had been made within the past few years. The courier knew, then, that he had not always used it. A standard model pistol this was, albeit newer than many people in less advanced locales across America would ever know. The Khans left him with it because he'd been carrying something more interesting. More than just the chip, the suited man wanted that. The Khans would have claimed something else he owned. Six wondered what that could have been, staring at the weapon in his hands.

The dream he'd recorded while on the road had yet to slip his mind as well. Something had caused the Khans to come after him. How recently had he left their ranks? Had he been forced out?

All he seemed to have was questions.

The afternoon wore itself out, and the sun slid back over the horizon, welcoming the night. Injured, the moon tentatively rose in the sky, on the way to being reduced to a half.

Light flickered through the buildings where Hayes had relit his fire, and his men returned to eat whatever rations they had and turn in, leaving only the unfortunate two who had drawn night watch duty. Six's stomach growled and he thought about getting into some of the food Trudy had sent him away with.

It wasn't a very strong argument against his stomach. Laughing, he thought how comical it would be to have his attempts at stealth foiled by a loud stomach growl.

A few slices of steak made from Brahmin meat were the first to go, lest they rot too quickly in the Mojave sun. It should have been left to cook longer, but considering the kind of food others ate, it was a small gripe, and Six was happy enough to fill his stomach with something that tasted better than dirt. Cooked right, a good meal could do wonders, after all.

He resolved to try his own hand at cooking some dinner at a later date, rather than just live off whatever food he could buy or pick off plants. Something in him stirred a little at that, and he challenged himself to make something truly delicious.

A drink of his bottled water later, and the courier was up and moving, looking over Primm for entrances to the small town.

Much of it was fenced with iron, probably to keep out raiders or fulfil some Pre-War purpose Six would never know, and for the most part had been well-maintained as well. The overpass bridge was the only way to get into the town from the west, and the north was completely fenced.

So, by process of elimination, he moved down towards the southern end of town and was pleased to find what might once have been a parking lot without any fencing, leading down into the town's main street, which crossed in front of both the Bison Steve hotel, whose double doors were currently enjoying the company of three Gangers shooting the breeze, the Vikki & Vance casino, which Six noted the convicts seemed to be actively avoiding, and the Mojave Express, formerly his workplace.

Each sat in a triangle around an intersection shaped like a 'T', and it seemed doubtless that making his way down there without a plan would only result in his own death. Since so far the courier had been enjoying his little stint at life mk.2, he wasn't about to waste it on a street filled with convicts the NCR were incapable of touching.

Thankfully the main street wasn't his only road: another row of buildings obscured a street that slipped down behind the Mojave Express, and behind that a cracked concrete walk wandered in front of some residential houses, most of which were missing their roofs; which made them perfect sniper nests.

The night would serve as his cover, and he'd be careful. Six slipped down into the street and quickly made his way over to the first building on the corner, careful not to let his shoes ring out on the concrete.

The pistol was in his hand as he moved, taking refuge in the shadows of someone's old home. The windows had long since ceased to hold against the weather, leaving gaping holes through which starlight and moonbeams could slither into the residence, probing into the history of a house that must once have been called home to a small family. Perhaps a large one that lived outside their means, but grew tight knit for it.

Now, if he was unlucky, it stood as a home to some trigger-happy convict just waiting for another opportunity to test his dynamite.

The next house was an extension of the first, cramped in to make room for more lodgings over town at the expense of any outdoor section. As he moved across the doorway a sound wafted down to him from the staircase. He froze, flattening against the narrow wall between the open doorway and the window to its left, his ears straining to pick up that noise again.

A roar of laughter went up from the street on the other side of this block, and someone shouted some kind of command from the direction of the intersection. Six picked up more swear words than actual dialogue, but the gist seemed to be 'shut up'.

"Jerry, that you?" came a voice down the footpath.

So much for being careful, Six cursed himself. One round of laughter and a – yes, it was, now he could hear it – snoring man and he was already losing his ability to convincingly sneak.

"Oi, Jerry!" the man hissed, careful not to yell but trying to throw his voice. "Over here you little fuckwig!"

Six's inner refinement groaned. Well educated convicts. His favourite kind.

Improvising, the courier responded. "What do you want, shitswallow?"

"What? Wait a second!" the convict said after a moment of confusion. Unsurprisingly, the courier's improvised 'Powder Ganger' voice had been incorrect.

He didn't wait for a question or a scuffle; the man was too far away to use his razor, so that left only the cold, impersonal bullet in his hand. He fire two rounds, the first going through the other man's upper chest, just under his collar bone, and the next jumping up, tearing out the side of his neck. He barely shrieked as he fell to the ground, incapable of keeping his breath where it should be, with blood rushing in to fill the void.

"Thefuck!" came the voice upstairs the house, and Six swore under his breath.

Sliding back into the shadows beside the door he held his gun at the ready. There was a succession of thudding noises and the courier held his breath. If someone rounded either corner he'd have a serious problem.

But the convict blasted out of the doorway first, huffing his indignation at being woken up so early into his sleep. He went back to sleep with a hole in the back of his head, and was gone long before it went all the way through.

His gun had already been in hand, the same kind as Courier Six's: a nine millimetre weapon. Dashing forward he snatched it out of his hand and yanked his jacket off with it. Debating for a moment whether or not it would be worth moving for the other man, Six hesitated, looking down at the two dead bodies he'd created in the space of what couldn't be more than two minutes.

The world was a cruel place. People would justify their actions with 'self defence' and the argument that the convicts were 'bad people', but it wouldn't wash the blood from their hands. Nor would it wash it off his.

He flashed out of the shadows and into the moonlight, pulling the other convict's jacket off and slipping back into the shadows, retreating into the house the Ganger who might have been called 'Jerry' had been sleeping.

Making his way up the stairs, he kept low and rummaged through the first jacket, finding exactly what he'd hoped for: another clip for his pistol. Alongside that, three sticks of dynamite padded the jacket, which he left alone in their pockets for now.

The top of the stairs was once a bedroom, though now only a mangled mattress remained, beside which sat a small pile of magazines and a book, a coffee mug filled with something Six knew wasn't coffee, and an empty liquor bottle. The roof was gone, and the debris had been cleared away years ago, leaving the starry evening above to glint down upon him, and where once a window had overlooked an alley that ran between the two rows of buildings there now sat a wooden board to cross into the window opposite, into a building whose roof had somehow withstood the test of time.

He waited, crouching in the night, taking stock of his actions. Two men dead, three bullets. That left ten to this clip before he'd need to swap in another. Hopefully he didn't require them in a hurry.

For what felt like an hour, he waited, though in reality it was only twenty minutes. No Gangers came to check what the gunshots had been over. None came looking for their friend.

He couldn't reliably count on luck though, that was a shortcut straight to disaster. This time Lady Luck had smiled at him, but next time she'd laugh in his face, and he preferred that be in a bet of something less than his life.

Compulsively, he realised he'd slipped the book into his pocket. Taking it out again he read the cover in the dim light as best he could. 'Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor'. They'd managed to stretch a whole book out of it. Impressive.

Six slipped it back into his coat, noting how he seemed to have a pocket on the inside specifically sized to fit something about the dimensions of a book. He knew how to read. How many wastrels could say that?

He checked the other coat and found the same thing as the first; more dynamite and more ammo. Swiping the ammo, he threw both coats over his shoulder.

Deciding enough time had passed he poked his head over the alleyway and squinted into the darkness. Nothing stirred.

Without waiting for a better moment, he slipped out onto the plank hanging over the narrow gap and tested its weight. Another crossed underneath it to help support the weight, but it didn't give him a great sense of comfort, so he decided to make his stay on it shortlived, crossing quickly and slipping into the darkness beyond.

Nothing was here, but light reached up from the floor below, giving him just enough to make his way to the stairway. He checked below it, but no Gangers were there either. He began to wonder if the situation was as bad as the news made it sound. It seemed the convicts were understaffed too.

Slowly and excruciatingly careful, the courier peered out into the street beyond. Down the far end was one holding his gun ready, and two more were stalking the street's opposite end. From the darkness of the house Six attempted to see any more, but before he could he decided he'd spent enough time looking, and slipped back into the darkness proper.

Finally something in his head slapped him, probably common sense. He'd just snuck into a town occupied by dynamite crazed convicts and killed two of their number, all so that he could try following a warrior gang and their businessman boss and… do what, exactly? Ask them why he needed to be shot in the head?

No, complete his delivery sounded much more professional. He was a courier, and right now it was all he had to his name. Surely he had to take pride in his work.

The longer he waited the further away from him they'd slip, and he couldn't afford to wait. Yesterday he'd killed a mob of angry convicts with the help of a little town. Now he was going to do it alone, in the name of information.

He slipped back up the staircase and dropped the convict jackets to the floor while he searched through his pockets. A packet of matches emerged a few moments later, and he pulled one from its place, sealing the rest back inside the pack. Picking up one of the jackets, he pulled one stick of dynamite out, and lit the match.

The jacket tumbled down into the alleyway, and Six lit the stick in his hand, waving out the match and dropping the explosive down to hit the ground near the jacket, where two more slumbered.

"Bon voyage," he bid it, and wondered where he'd heard that before.

A moment later the explosion came, a 'BANG!' that echoed off the narrow alleyways walls and smashed the weak wall of the building Jerry had been sleeping in.

Shouts rose from the street, and Six was pleased to hear the sounds of running approaching along the alleyway. The second jacket was emptied, its three sticks standing ready. Another match was in hand, this one's light shielded within his coat so as not to cast shadows into the alley.

"The hell!" one Ganger wondered aloud.

"Which one of you dumb fucks was playing with fire! Jerry! Dom!" another shouted furiously.

Two sticks were lit, but Six waited to light the third before he flicked the match into the alleyway. By the time the first Ganger saw the little flicker of flame flutter down to meet them all three standing in the alley had the time to register the clattering sounds landing near them. A third dropped between them and the newly made hole in the wall, surrounding them with the explosives.

"Fuck," one whimpered on the edge of tears, while the other jumped to action. The third simply stared up at the face of a courier above him. The quick one spun around, grabbing the stick of dynamite that had landed behind him, and brought it up to his mouth. He moved to run down the alleyway he'd cleared, knowing the other two he wouldn't reach in time, only to learn that this stick had been left to burn before it was thrown down – the fuse was already gone.

He inhaled, ready to save his hide as the last of the flame reached into the stick… and wasn't fast enough.

The courier pulled his head into the window and rolled down the stairs unceremoniously as one, two, three explosions rocked the alleyway and shook the building, throwing him off balance. He didn't expect to see those three again.

After a moment of disorientation, Six peered out into the street again and decided to waste no time; there was another alleyway opposite him, this one leading onto the street that ended in the Bison Steve, with the casino and Mojave Express on each corner.

Dashing across, he hoped the confusion of all the explosions at the south of town would make the Gangers antsy. They'd be more alert, but they'd be jittery; give them something demoralising and they'd gun it, especially if he could really scare 'em.

The alley was empty as well, but as he hurried along it he knew the street beyond wasn't. He was two buildings down from the Mojave Express if he came out onto the street, and that intersection would probably be well guarded.

Ten bullets, he reminded.

Flat against the east wall, he checked the western stretch of the street leading back to the overpass. Nobody there. Odd, but not unwelcome. Slipping back down the alley he spared a glance into the street behind him and then swapped walls, checking the east side of the street. This side was occupied.

One Ganger stood under the overhang that ran along the street side of the casino and around the corner onto the main street, leaning against one of the many pillars that held it up. Another had his back to him, walking up the street, visibly shaking, and not from the cool of the evening.

He snuck along the wall a little further and checked the footpath closest to him. There were two corpses, one dressed in the familiar blue 'NCRCF' jacket, but the other was dressed in the kind of clothing your general drifter might wear. His skin was pale, and there seemed to be flies buzzing over him already; this man had been dead for some time.

Sitting in the gutter with a bottle of alcohol was another Ganger, this one mumbling something Six couldn't hear from where he was and taking heavy swigs of the bottle, which from its shape was likely whiskey.

He'd liked whiskey once. Had he? Not anymore, either way.

Slipping the other convict's pistol off his belt and into his hand he took a deep breath. This was suicide. He didn't even know how many rounds the other pistol held. Ten in his. He took a breath.

"Three…" the night air was cool.

"Two…" the Ganger took a big swig of whiskey and laughed at his own private joke.

"One…" the other looked at the fire slowly burning his cigarette up.

"Go," Courier Six breathed.

He burst out of the alleyway firing a shot from each gun at the drunken man. Poor bastard was closest. The first blew his bottle to pieces, unfortunately sending shards of glass straight into his open mouth. The other round burst into his shoulder and broke up on his bone.

The smoker swore at the top of his lungs and dropped the cigarette, reaching for his gun. The one at the top of the street was spinning round in a panic as Six aimed for him and blasted four rounds down the street. The two from his gun went wide, but his second struck home on his left leg and then higher, going straight into his guts. He stumbled back and fired a round. It missed completely, chipping into the wall of the casino.

Seven rounds.

Another two went into dealing with the smoker, who had his gun at the ready. Both exchanged a round of gunfire, the convict moving back to step behind the pillar. One of his bullets was aimed too low and bounced off the ground, striking Six as a malformed hunk of metal, but still with enough velocity and heat to sting, causing a wince.

He vaulted behind another pillar, hiding under the overhand of the casino and took a deep breath. Five.

One convict burst around the corner holding a rifle and had enough time to yell "Got ya!" before Six emptied all five into his face in a burst of surprised terror. The mangled remains struck the ground with a sick thud and the courier dropped the other gun while he reloaded. Pulling himself up into a kneeling position, he slid the magazine out of the convict's handgun and checked. Metal clip, no way of seeing whether that was his last bullet. Deciding it wasn't worth the trouble, he slipped one of his own clips back in, sliding the unknown one into his pant pocket.

Taking another deep breath he slipped around the pillar and pointed both forward, taking aim at the third one, where the smoker would be taking cover.

Quickly, he slipped forward to the second.

"Who the fuck are you!" the convict demanded.

"A courier. You're getting in the way of my job," Six said, putting on his best intimidation voice. "Where are the townspeople? I need to ask them some questions about a friend of mine who passed through here."

He heard the Powder Ganger throw up. "Oh fuck, _oh fuck!_" he yelled as loud as he could. "You're _that _courier!"

Internally he asked which courier. Externally he growled, "I suggest you get out of my way, and I won't have to kill you."

His venture paid off. Whoever's part he was playing, he was feared by this convict.

"I'm no moron!" he yelled, already running. "Get out! Everyone get out! He's here! The Courier's here! Run for your motherfuckin' lives!"

That went far better than he'd expected. He could actually hear a few more convicts take heel and bolt at top speed, running back north to the prison with their tails between their legs, desperate to put distance between themselves and this phantom courier.

A gunshot rang out and Six heard one man bellow. "I will not tolerate deserters! We dun' worked nice and hard to get where we were, and you're letting one little mailman scare you silly!"

Slipping forward the Courier saw him standing in front of the hotel's double doors which stood open, revealing the overturned interior. A fresh corpse slumped on the street in front of him, and the revolver in his hand was still smoking.

The two exchanged glances as Six slipped behind another pillar, and mentally Six groaned. Revolvers were not good to stand opposite. This man sounded like the real deal, and if his aim was any good it could spell disaster.

He heard the sound of clanking metal, and another voice joined the first. "What's going on, Pitbull?" This one was more gruff, older.

'Pitbull' fired a round into the pillar Six hid behind. "We got us a leg'ndary paper boy hiding behind the wall there," he growled. "These idjuts are running scared."

"A what?" the other convict wondered.

"A courier!" Pitbull exclaimed, and Six bolted between the pillars, firing at them. He stopped behind the fourth and his eyes widened. There weren't as many convicts now, but Pitbull had a revolver, and much worse, his friend had a goddamned flamethrower.

"What, he think he's some kinda goddamn martyr!" Pitbull's friend, Crispy Bacon wondered. "Torch his ass!"

The courier heard a lighter flick open. "With pleasure," Pitbull said, and Six knew he was lightning a stick of dynamite. If his aim was anything near good this would be very very bad for number Six.

He looked around, and realised he was at the corner: the double doors leading into the casino were right there in front of him. Dynamite or doorway? If he timed it well, he might even fool the convicts into thinking he'd been blown up. As long as they didn't go hunting for gore in the dark.

Another deep breath. No time to count to three now, it was go time when he heard the clatter of dynamite.

Yet part of him was deeply thrilled at what he was doing. Life and limb like this.

His musings ended as the clatter and fizzle of dynamite landed much too close to him. He burst out from behind the pillar firing from both pistols and barrelling back towards the door. Crispy Bacon sent a plume of fire straight at him, and he tripped backwards through the Vikki & Vance Casino doors, slamming them open with his elbow and shielding his eyes from the heat that rushed towards him. The fire wouldn't reach him, but the heat was still tremendous.

As he fell into the casino something struck him in the back of the head.

_~Chase: To continue playing with a hand that is not likely the best because one has already invested money in the pot._


	5. Fourth Hand: FourStraight

Not much to say for this one. Any comments on the fight scenes would be appreciated though. One thing I've noticed many writers avoid is a battle sequence because of how confusing they can become. I don't shy away from the challenge, and I'd like to know how well you guys think I do.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Fourth Hand – Four-Straight<strong>_

_22nd October 2281_

Vision returned in blurred pieces. A cream ceiling. No, wait, those were walls. The ceiling... never mind, same colour. The floor offered something different: red carpet. It felt good. Velvet. Why could he feel it?

As sense returned he realised it was because his cheek was pushed into it. He was lying on the floor. Sore, too.

The past five minutes flowed back into him quickly, and he sat upright, flinging his arms wide and sending a gun that lay at his side skittering away. He wasn't tied up.

Immediately however, a gun was pointed directly at his face, and details swam into view. Slot machines sat in rows before him, before the little side room he was in opened out into the casino proper. A rusted, long useless car sat as a centrepiece in a small museum of personal items, around which a number of people walked. Vending machines stood at attention periodically.

His eyes snapped back to the weapon before him. The voice behind it began to speak.

"I don't know what it was brought you to Primm, young man, but you might want to rethink your plans. Town's gone to hell," the dusky voice explained as though Six hadn't just been tearing the small settlement to pieces with bullet-fire.

"I don't think we've met," the courier blurred, pulling himself up into a sitting position.

The man behind the gun looked down at him from caves sunken back into his face over the course of years, and immediately Six realised he was wrong.

"Johnson Nash's my name. Husband to Ruby Nash. Lived in Primm going on eight years now, thick and thin," the man said, and one of Six's few memories sparked. "I'm a trader primarily, for what it's worth with things like they are. I also run..."

"The Mojave Express," Six finished. "I work for you."

Nash squinted at him and lowered the gun. "Well, I don't got any work right now, sorry to say," he said with a hint of humour. "You look familiar alright. I sent you on a job just recently didn't I?"

Courier Six nodded and sighed. "I lost the package. Got mugged on my way up I-15. Looking into who and why," he explained. If he could, he'd avoid mentioning the rather uninspiring bullet to the head, even if the subsequent rising from the grave made for a good story to spread.

"I'll tell you whatever I can. Have a delivery order you can show me?" Nash asked, scratching his shaven head, upon which hair had long since ceased growing. "My memory's getting troublesome in my old age; need to write everything down..."

Without speaking, Six reached into his pocket and pulled the invoice out. "Platinum chip?" he offered as the old man took it. Clouds rolled across Johnson's small eyes.

"Oh, so you're talking about one of _them _packages," he began. "That job had strange written all over it. But we couldn't turn down the caps."

Taking it back, Six stowed it in his pocket again. "All over it?" he pressed.

Nash nodded and sighed. "That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers. Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of die, a chess piece, that kind of stuff."

Alarm bells were already ringing in Six's head. Cowboy robot could only mean one thing: Victor. On top of that, the plural of die was dice. Johnson was illiterate.

"Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn't make it. First deadbeat we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive," Nash spat, scratching the gnarled woodwork of his elderly nose. "Well, that's where you came in."

Something murky in the depths of Six's brain reared its head, like some creature waking up and rising from the unclean bowels of a swamp. "Canceled?" was all that bubbled from his lips.

Nash sensed Six's change in attitude and offered a hand. The courier, realising he had yet to even stand up, took it and pulled himself to his feet. His boss continued.

"Yeah. Got this look when he saw you next down on the Courier list. His expression turned right around, asked me if your name was for real. I said, 'sure as lack of rain, he's still kicking.' Then he turned down the job just like that," the elderly man explained.

Something within him was screaming, demanding within the depths of his locked mind. An entire marshland, an unclean place within his memory had begun to shout. "What'd he do?" Six demanded.

"'No, let Courier Six carry the package,' that's what he said. Like the Mojave'd sort you out or something. Then he just up and walked out, not a word more," Nash concluded. His employee's head was spinning, and he had no idea why.

"Who was he? What was his name?"

"No idea. Sounds like you two knew each other for him to act like that. Double so, if he turned down that money. Hope he didn't see any trouble in that package of yours. Maybe he just thought your name was bad luck. Not for me to say, I suppose," Nash replied, trying to explain the strange connection between the two couriers.

Six remained unsure. Someone who knew him. Better than as a passing pleasantry to act like that... who was he! The shadow flickered through memory and then vanished again, a silhouette walking away. Damn!

Something else finally managed to sneak past the mental blocks Six's conscious was hammering against like a trapped animal. _Name._

"This will sound... strange," the courier admitted. His scar itched as he thought about that evening. It seemed in order to obtain knowledge his story would have to come out. "When I was robbed of the chip, I was shot. In the head."

Johnson chuckled, thinking for a moment it might have been a joke, but promptly he realised it wasn't. As Six scratched his head, his eyes widened, realising what the eclipse scar on his head really was - two bullet wounds.

"A doctor in Goodsprings managed to keep me from dying. Or bring me back. Whichever, I lost something in the transition. I don't remember my name. Or... much at all," he admitted.

Johnson Nash remained speechless, staring at the scars of Six's eventful evening.

"Anything you could tell me about myself would be more than helpful," the courier finished, after a few moments of sheepish silence.

Flabbergasted, Nash finally pulled himself out of his stupor. "Your name..." he thought." Let's see, it must be written here somewhere... on the delivery order?"

Six shook his head. "So far I'm just 'Courier Six'," he said, worried that Nash's failing memory was about to end in disappointment.

"I must have it written down... damn it, when those gangsters showed up we all piled into the casino here and put it in lockdown. It'll be in the store, written on the roster. Always have to check it, forgetting names all the damn time..." Nash muttered to himself, finally coming up with a shrug. "I'm sorry, Courier Six. You'll have to check in across the street. If you don't mind running past the gangsters."

He'd seen it coming, but that didn't make the impact any less disheartening. Pushing it away, knowing he just had to cross the street (which sounded so much harder here in Primm) he instead thought about his future.

"I already cleared out a good lot of them. I'm going after the package too. I want to know why they killed me over it. Tried to kill me, anyway. A group of Great Khans and a man in a checkered suit. They came south afterwards, through here, probably only a day before the gangers. Know anything? Or anyone that does?" the courier asked.

Nash thought a moment, before nodding and turning, walking towards the casino's displays. Six followed him, looking around. The entire town had gathered in the sizeable casino, with some carrying mattresses into the cashier's station with children trailing them, carting blankets and the like to make a sleeping area. Across the other side of the displays was a small bar, with men and women sitting on every seat. Opposite the entrance was another open door, through which the sounds and sights of pool tables clattered. The people of Primm were staying occupied as best they could.

The courier noted that every adult he saw had some kind of gun sitting at their waist. Some of the rougher looking characters sported rifles slung over their backs, barrels pointing fiercely at the ceiling.

"Now you mention it, a few nights back one of the townies was out scavenging for supplies. He said he saw such a fella with a daisy suit come through some of them Khan misfits, talking about a chip," Nash explained, heading for the bar. Six chuckled quietly.

"That's them, for sure. Where'd they head?"

"Well for that your best bet is going to be talking to Deputy Beagle," Nash drawled, patting one man on the back.

"Deputy," Six introduced as the man slipped off the chair and let Johnson take his place. A rough looking character with a thick handlebar moustache of rusty brown, bald with dark brown eyes turned to look at him, wearing a white shirt that a few drops of alcohol had fallen onto. Thick khaki pants rounded the ensemble off over black gumboots.

The man laughed in a harsh tone. "I ain't that chicken-shit deputy, son," he said in a gravelly voice, before turning and walking away, sliding his double-barreled shotgun over his shoulder and into one waiting hand.

Confused, Six turned back to Nash, a question on his scarred face.

"He was slinking around the Bison Steve when they came through, keeping notes on 'em. If anyone heard where they were going, it'd be him. He's still in there, though. Every now and again the gangsters threaten to do something nasty to him if we don't cough up some cash or more ammo, so we know they haven't just killed him," Nash explained, raising a hand. A woman behind the bar wearing a pale pink dress that had dirtied around the bottom reached up for a bottle of scotch and placed it on the table in front of the Mojave Express owner. Her hair was long and blonde, braided down her back to her waist.

"So I'm heading into that godforsaken hotel?" Six said disbelievingly. "I just about got burned to a crisp just for crossing the street in front of it. Hell, this coat probably has a few extra bullet holes for the ordeal too!"

Nash unscrewed the lid of his bottle. "We aren't big fans of the situation either, actually," he said in a rather irritated tone.

Pausing, Six considered that point, and relented. "Fair enough. I want some information I'll only get by going in there, you want those bastards out of the hotel and out of your town."

The old man watched as Six moved into the middle of the room, climbing up on the display car, which groaned under the new weight.

"Please refrain from climbing the displays!" came a robotic voice nearby, and Six looked down to see a Protectron. Another kind of robot built before the war, these odd looking things held a humanoid shape, much more than the unicycled Securitrons, with two metallic legs and a pear shaped torso that served double as a head, with a flashing bulb of light at its peak. Protruding from either side of the metallic pear were a small set of stubby arms that rounded into three cylindrical digits which rotated and twitched up and down as the machine waddled awkwardly toward him.

"Citizens of Primm!" he called, casting his eyes about the townspeople, who had all paused to see the strange man standing on top of a car. "The Powder Gangers have swept into your town and decided they own the thing, but I have business with Deputy Beagle, and they've got him strung up in the hotel. Now, on my way in I sent a pretty strong message to those bastards that I was not happy with the current state of Primm, and I'd like to request a little help in gathering a clean-up crew!"

Now he definitely had their attention. Some drifter coming into town and dealing a blow to the convicts? That was the kind of thing they could get behind. "I don't need many, but I can see you've all got a few shooters amongst you, so anyone who knows how to fire one would be greatly appreciated! They're spooked right now, and we can surprise them with a few behind me; these are petty crooks who aren't used to people fighting back, and if you do just that they're gonna run scared like babies, and they'll never come back! So grab yourself a shotgun, a rifle, or just a nice six-shooter, and come see me. I'm rolling back out there in half an hour, and by morning this town is going to be back on its feet!"

As he jumped down off the car and strode towards the slot machines by the door a few people actually cheered and clapped, and a few people even ventured a call. "Kick those cons out!" was one, "Right on, Drifter!" another.

Feeling confident, he sat down in front of one of the machines and took a breather. He hadn't slept yet, beside his brief time unconscious, and it would wear on him soon. But not yet.

For five minutes he simply sat and waited. The quiet hum of conversations kept the casino feeling homely, and Six smiled. He wondered if the town had ever felt so close together as they did cowering from the gangers. A morbid sense of community.

"Business with the deputy eh?" came a voice, and Six looked up to see his first recruit. A middle-aged man looked back at him, a scruffy mass of black facial hair over his jaw, arcing up over his mouth and down the other side. Another pair of brown eyes, these ones hard and worn, watched him. Seated on his head was a wide-brimmed leather hat, textbook cowboy, and his attire consisted of a white shirt, striped with black, under a blue jacket. His pants were dark grey over brown cowboy boots that looked like leather as well.

The courier grinned. "Now you look like a man with gun experience," he said happily.

"Too much according to the New California Republic," the man replied. "I'll be up-front, I'm an escaped convict as well, but not like those assholes in the street."

Courier Six's grin faltered a little. "Go on."

"Well, simple put, I was in there for ah... 'taking justice into my own hands'. Legal processes ran a little slow for me, and I wasn't about to let the sucker just waltz out before they could pin a charge on him. So I ended up with charges instead. Few months left on my sentence and look what happens: those bastards break loose, and I'm stuck between being part of the going party, or the staying party," the man explained. "Well let me tell you, that prison is a fortress, and I did not like the looks of how it was shaping up, so I took my chances with the going party and peeled off as soon as I could. Rest of 'em wanted to 'get even'. I just wanted to get back to livin' again. Name's Meyers."

Six sized him up and down several times, wary of him. He seemed genuine, but how truthful or trustworthy he was couldn't be defined just yet. "Townspeople know about that?" he asked finally.

Meyers as he'd introduced himself glanced back at the people as they went about their routine. Some had slipped into the cashier's station for sleep, and the children had been ushered in behind them. "A few, but I'm careful about who I broadcast to. I'm sure you understand. Maybe if I do this I can prove I'm not in amongst those murdering psychos," he said sincerely, and Six nodded.

"Alright then Meyers. You have a chance to prove yourself. I sincerely hope I won't be let down," he said, holding out a hand.

Meyers took it, pulling his hat off with his other hand and tipping his head forward. "No sir you won't," he said confidently.

Quarter of an hour passed, and Six checked his Pip-Boy. Ten minutes to go, and a hand stretched forward with a bottle of nuka cola.

Taking it, Six looked up at the second member of the Primm Militia. A pair of green eyes sat above an honest smile. He was a young man, a few years less to him than Six, with a bronze tone and messy chestnut hair. His clothing was simple overalls and stained navy shirt underneath an ancient brown jacket. Just by looking he could get a picture of what this boy had in mind.

"Damien," he said in a voice that further cemented the courier's opinion. A young man, not yet truly an adult, with something to prove. "I think it's high time someone did what you're doing."

Courier Six froze, his eyes staring blankly at him. Fuses spat and hissed within him. Cogs ground into action.

"You alright?" the boy asked.

Shaking himself, the courier replied. "Damien. It… was my father's name. Sorry, spaced out there a second. Good to have you." He said no more, unscrewing the cap on the bottle and stowing it with the rest in his pocket, kept tight so they wouldn't jingle.

Damien and Meyers began to converse, and Six zoned in and out over the last ten minutes of his wait as he tried to remember his father. Instead what appeared in his mind was the coat he wore. So, a family heirloom was it?

The peppy drink filled with caffeine and sugar resting in his system, Six decided finally that it was time. Tonight, three men would enter the Bison Steve, and by his prediction, morning would shine on a Primm owned by its citizens once more.

As he rallied his troops, a woman stepped forward, the one previously behind the bar in the pale pink dress. She had changed since tending to Nash's need for alcohol, and was now wearing thick leather pants, a tight fitting black t-shirt, and carrying a shotgun.

Her eyes were blue, focused and clear, and to his pleasure Six saw she was within a year of his own age, or at least looked it.

"Room for one more, boys? Khali," she introduced in a smooth, commanding voice.

There was a pause, as both realised where Six's eyes had strolled as she talked, and they promptly made for the door with a mutter of "s'apleasure" from the courier.

Both of his guns ready, Six stepped into the dark night air and bolted for the nearest pillar. Meyers peered out the door and followed alongside Khali, with Damien distractedly trailing her.

The street was empty, the night air cool and dry. The Gangers must have decided to return into the casino. Good.

Scanning the front of the hotel, Six saw no sign of Pitbull or his flamethrower-toting friend. A relief.

Meyers tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up, towards the hotel's sign. Behind the Bison Steve's titular animal mascot was a small balcony, over which a convict had fallen asleep, his arm dangling down into the space below him.

Damien moved, bringing his hunting rifle up to aim at the man. The courier cast a glance across the street, at the Mojave Express, and considered making a stop there.

The explosion of a rifle firing deterred that thought process, and the Powder Ganger, or at least his body from the neck down, slumped back behind the sign. The rest of his head separated in various unsightly directions.

The small group bolted across the street without waiting for further warning, making a beeline for the door. Pausing before it, they exchanged looks. A convict, a tribal, a boy, and a courier. Tonight, each of them had something to gain.

Meyers kicked the door open, with Six and Damien aiming into the foyer beyond. Khali dashed in, diving behind a couch that had been carelessly thrown into the middle of the room as cover from the opposite direction. The convict and the courier followed her, with the boy bringing up the rear a moment later.

Shouts came from inside the hotel as the convicts were startled from sleep by their comrades.

Without hesitation the woman vaulted over the couch and dashed across the foyer, throwing herself against the wall near an open doorway. Six surveyed his surroundings as Meyers followed.

The foyer was large, open, with a reception desk extending out of a wall on the right side of the room. An old computer terminal sat on it, green tinted screen humming with life. Bloodstains on the wall suggested the receptionist hadn't moved from her station recently.

The left side of the wall was considerably more cheerful, with a second couch still leaning against the wall next to a table. The wall was adorned with pictures that had long since rotted out of their frames. Well, cheerful in comparison to a dead receptionist.

Only one door led further into the hotel, which meant they wouldn't be ambushed by others within the building.

Satisfied, Six and Damien joined their comrades near the door. Khali poked her head around into the hallway beyond, which twisted right down a corridor, and promptly drew it back again. A spray of gunfire splattered the wall.

Meyers was the first to react, looking around the corner and firing two resounding bangs from his revolver. The scream that followed confirmed his accuracy. Damien, eager to prove himself, moved forward to do the same with his rifle, but Six grabbed his shoulder and held him back as another spray of gunfire tore into the wall around the door, a few rounds flicking through to strike at a long empty picture frame.

Breathing a sigh, the young man realised how close he'd come to nearly being eviscerated by gunfire.

More bullets drove into the wall, this time a different firearm. The courier found himself easily picking up the differences in gunfire. The first few assaults were clearly automatic, but now pistols were mixed in.

"You stupid bastards!" one convict called. "None o' you got any right comin' in here trying to take our town!"

Khali's eyes flared, and she swung around the corner, blasting both barrels of her shotgun down the hallway before swinging back around the corner as if on hinges.

Stepping back, Six tried to look as far down the hallway as possible, and succeeded in spotting a door only a metre down the hallway's opposite wall.

"Alright you three, I'm going to make a dash for the door opposite. Can anyone tell me where it leads?" he explained.

"The kitchen," said Damien. "Leads out into the mess hall, and so does this hallway after it passes the stairs and the old elevator."

"Alright, means I can come around behind them. What's down the hall the other way?" the courier asked, gripping both pistols ready.

"Just a storage room," Damien stated succinctly.

Khali slid around the corner again, blasting a convict who had hoped to sneak up on them full in the face before ducking away again and reloading, with Meyers and Damien jumping out in her place, firing down the hallway. Both returned to cover and reloaded, before looking at the courier who had rallied them and nodding in turn.

"Give me some cover," he commanded, stepping back for a run up.

The Powder Gangers roared and someone lit a stick of dynamite as Six started running. He burst from the doorway, both guns blasting down the hallway where five convicts, Pitbull among them, were standing with various firearms. Two were holding chunky handguns, while another two sported automatic rifles. Pitbull held onto his revolver.

All five dived back into cover as Six's small squad appeared in force, firing down the hallway to cover their leader, but the explosive had already been loosed, and as he saw it soaring down towards him Courier Six's eyes widened.

He smashed through the door at breakneck speed, déjà vu of his entrance into the casino fluttering into his mind as he rolled down the hallway beyond, leaving one of his guns behind. The dynamite had soared past the doorway, meaning the force of the blast didn't reach him, and for just a moment he allowed himself to relax before scrabbling to collect his weapon.

He was in a small adjoining corridor, the kitchen door at the other end stood open, revealing shelves with various foodstuffs, some of which had gone bad, and a counter with a knife thrust into it.

The gunfire continued behind him, but he pressed on down into the kitchen. To his right it opened out into the mess hall, but it was left he noticed a key factor in his foray into the hotel: a man, hogtied and asleep on the floor. His hair was combed back, platinum-gold, and he wore the kind of leather armour that was quite commonplace around the Mojave; Sunny Smiles had worn a similar kind of getup. Six did a double take. And he was _snoring._

A quick check revealed that yes; a gunfight was going on just down the corridor. Yet he was snoring.

Moving over to him, Six felt unapologetic as he slapped him in the face to wake him up.

"Don't kill me!" he barked as his eyes sprang open. There was a pause as the man, 'Beagle' as Nash had called him, looked at the courier before him. He didn't look like a Powder Ganger.

"I don't suppose you came to rescue me? I'd cross my fingers, but I can't feel them anymore," he said, more hopefully. "I'm Deputy Beagle, and as you can see, I'm in a bit of a predicament. Is that… gunfire?"

The Courier knelt down and slipped his razor from his coat's pocket, using it to cut into the ropes binding the deputy. "Yeah. We're taking the town back," he said quickly, sawing through one rope.

"Oh, that's just marvelous," he said sincerely, before adding, "I think I'll be making my way outside. The air's a little too close in here."

The Courier looked up at him and glared. "I have three good people back there holding off the Gangers and pushing them out. You're helping, or you're staying here," he spat, disgusted at this lawman's utter lack of duty.

Beagle's jaw hung open for a moment as he debated his response, and Six stopped cutting at his bindings. That seemed to help him find his voice. "Uh, well, uh, of course!" he blustered.

"Fried lawbringer, woohoo! And a side order of Samaritan!" came a cackling voice behind the courier and he froze, feeling the blood draining from his face.

Beagle yelped pathetically and shuffled back from him, trying to hide the cut ropes. The sound of something igniting reminded him of who it was. Pitbull's friend with a flamethrower.

Slowly he turned around to see the small plume of flame dancing in front of the flamer's nozzle, aimed squarely at his face. Looking down at him was a Powder Ganger in a white singlet. Red hair was shaven bald on one side of his head, slicked down along the other side in some ridiculous half/half, and if he didn't have a flamethrower stuffed in his face he'd have laughed. Instead, all that seemed to spring forth was "Aw, fuck."

"You bet your ass 'aw fuck'! This is _our _town now!" the convict exclaimed, pushing the flamethrower further into his face. "I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some trumped up mail man take that from me!"

"How about I do the honours then?" came Meyers voice, and as the convict turned, bringing the flamethrower up, the other convict had already fired, blowing the top half of Bacon's head off, leaving Six to rub blood from his cheek as the Powder Ganger's corpse dropped like a stone.

All distrust evaporated as Meyers stood before him, smoking gun in hand, looking into his eyes. Then the moment passed and he was looking out into the mess hall, where a small collection of Gangers were taking cover behind tables. The wood didn't hold up well against the puncturing strength of the man's revolver, and one convict yelped in pain as a bullet tore through the woodwork, hurtling splinters and metal into his side.

"The other two?" Six asked as he attacked Beagle's bindings once again.

"Fine. Damien's a good shot, and that Khali is just the right kind of mad," Meyers responded proudly, reloading his weapon and patting his pockets. "Shit, should have stocked up."

"Here," the courier called, tossing one of his pistols across to his ally, who caught it and slipped it into his belt. "I've got a few extra clips, but don't treat 'em like candy."

Damien's rifle blasted a Powder Ganger through the shoulder, and his friend screamed furiously, leaping to his feet and charging with a fire axe.

Khali was quick to feed him her shotgun, and his body was thrown backwards into a table, his front half torn up while his reverse was greeted with all manner of wrong angles amongst the piles of wood.

"So Beagle," the courier began. "What can you tell me about the Khans who came through here? I've got some business with them, and you sound like the man to talk to."

He was already moving over to support Meyers, dashing around behind the counter and pressing himself flat against the other side of the alcove that opened out into the mess hall, by the time Beagle had composed himself enough to reply from a hiding place behind the counter.

"I overheard them say they were on their way to Novac!" he stated loudly. "If you're following them I strongly suggest taking the highway south and then following it through Nipton!"

"Where's Novac?" Six demanded, leaning out of cover and firing a few rounds, sending a bullet into one man's shoulder and another into his hand as he brought it up to aim another assault rifle at Damien and Khali.

"East," Meyers cut in. "Highway 95 goes right past it. Problem is, if you just head straight east there's hard terrain and sheer cliff face through there. From what I hear it's a nesting ground for undesirables, both human and not."

"Exactly!" Beagle chimed, as though he'd actually added something to the conversation.

"Great. Well, at least they should have been heading that way too," the courier said, firing another few rounds and looking on the bright side.

There was an unholy screeching sound, and all three men looking into the mess hall to see Khali sprint across the room, place one foot on a table that had turned on its side, and kick herself up into the air, firing her shotgun straight down and jumping slightly at the recoil. She rolled as she hit the ground, throwing the barrel forward and squeezing the trigger again. A second convict was turned into paste, and she stayed down, letting out a savage laugh.

"See what I mean about mad?" Meyers asked, looking at Courier Six, who had paled a little.

"She's… that was impressive," he managed.

"That's that tribal woman, isn't it?" Beagle wondered, leaning over the counter just a little further in an attempt to get a look. "I knew she was trouble. But Sheriff McBain said she was alright. Poor bastard's dead now. Not because of her, obviously, I mean, unless she had something to do with the convicts coming to town, but I don't see why she would, I mean she didn't gain anything from it, but I mean…"

Six and Meyers had long since stopped listening to Beagle prattle on. Khali jumped up from cover and aimed at one of the convicts. There weren't many left now, four by his estimation. A second jumped up, revolver pointed squarely at the tribal woman's head, but before either of the two men in the kitchen could do anything Damien had taken care of the situation, his hunting rifle blasting him back behind cover with a fresh wound.

Not without satisfaction, Six noted that was Pitbull.

Free from harm, at least temporarily, Khali blasted both barrels into another convict, and the last two remained silent.

As she went to move in again, tossing aside the shotgun which no longer had any shells to fill it, they both emerged weaponless with their hands up. "Alright, alright!" they whined. "We'll go!"

Meyers and Six moved towards them, guns steady. Six scouted the hall quickly. Another set of stairs were signposted to their left as they came in, and the hallway they'd been fighting down was across the hall to their right, but between those two and the kitchen the mess hall was easy to defend from a fortified position. The Powder Gangers had been right to choose it, but they were incompetent.

With their hands up, both convicts stepped out from behind the table and knelt down with their hands behind their heads, no doubt as they'd been told to do when the NCR first arrested them.

Meyers wasn't an NCR lawman though. He stood before them barely a moment before blasting both in the head with the pistol Six had given him.

There was a moment of stunned silence. Damien and Beagle's eyes both widened in shock. Khali grinned with a satisfied savagery. Six stared a moment, nonplussed, then turned to Meyers. "They'd surrendered. That wasn't necessary at all."

"Better they die here then go on to harass traders or join one of the other raider gangs," Meyers said definitively. "Messing with a town like this just because they had guns and dynamite? I don't stand for that kind of thing."

Part of him agreed, but the other reawakened his distrust of Meyers. Perhaps he had been right, but as just two they'd have been hardly a threat to even the most bare of caravans.

"That oughtta send a message," Damien said finally, leaning against the doorway from where he had previously taken cover. "Primm's not to be messed with."

Beagle appeared as if by magic, clapping Six and Meyers on the shoulders as they watched each other with a mix of wariness and respect. They'd trust each other to keep each other alive again, but somehow Six knew that if they ever ended up on opposing sides of a conflict neither of them would hesitate. "Well! That was quite an adventure! We taught those convicts a thing or two, didn't we?" the deputy beamed. "Breaking myself out of a hostage situation – not to diminish your role in it, of course – but it was quite thrilling."

Courier Six and Meyers shared a moment of kinship: both instinctively elbowed Beagle in the ribs, receiving a satisfying yelp.

"There'll be a few more Gangers upstairs, but after tonight I think they'll probably sneak on out of town knowing what happened here. The townsfolk can stay in the casino one more night, and by morning things will be getting back into swing," the man said, turning towards Damien and heading towards the hotel's exit.

Six nodded. After what had happened in the hotel he doubted any Ganger in their right mind would keep up the attempt to own Primm.

Khali fell into step beside them, as did Damien, and the five of them made their way out of the hotel, sharing in the moment of triumph. Even Beagle, not that he really deserved it, enjoyed basking in the feeling.

The night air was chilly when they stepped outside, and the four members of the Primm militia took a moment to cool down. Damien chuckled and grinned. He'd been in a life or death situation and lived. He must have seen it as some kind of rite of passage to see if he could live up to some expectation, his own or otherwise.

Khali joined his chuckling as a gust blew down through the intersection, picking her braided hair up and letting it flow out beside her. Whatever it was she had to do; vent some indignation of the past, sate a bloodlust learned in her time among less civilised surroundings, or just feel alive in the heat of battle, she too had accomplished it.

Meyers gripped his hat, and the courier's coat snapped in the air. It was picturesque. Hell, some might have even called them heroes.

Beagle broke the silence. "Problem is, there's still no law in Primm," he said as though he'd been talking for a while already. "What're we to do the next time ruffians menace us and hold us hostage?"

"I think you've got a pretty good justice committee right here," the courier said. "Pick a sheriff. Hell, pick a new deputy."

If it hadn't come from Beagle, the look Six received for his comment might have been threatening. Instead, he looked at Meyers. The man understood.

"Come on, then. Let's have a drink. I know I could down one, and the townsfolk will be mighty glad to hear we pulled it off," he said, starting towards the casino again.

Damien and Khali exchanged glances as Beagle trailed along behind the man in the hat. One of them might make deputy soon.

Khali shivered, and for a second time Six noticed how thin her black t-shirt was. Then slapped himself and turned towards the Mojave Express.

"I'll uh… catch up," he said. "Something I need to check at the courier post."

The small contingent kept moving towards the casino, and Six watched them go, a small smile on his lips. What an evening.

Now, with half the information he wanted, he turned towards his place of business and wandered towards it, reaching for the door handle. He knew his immediate future now: following the highway to Novac, via another town called Nipton.

What came next was the past. His name.

_~Four-Straight: Four cards in rank sequence, missing one to complete a straight. A non-standard hand in some games, or an incomplete hand in most. Sometimes called "four to a straight."_


	6. Fifth Hand: Hearts

Well, this is so far my favourite uploaded entry of the story. We're out of the beginner's territory and starting to learn about the Mojave at large, and see some of the people and viewpoints within it. This is also the introduction of the first 'Wild Card', one of the original characters who will play more than a bit part._**  
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><p><em><strong>Fifth Hand – Hearts<strong>_

_Mid 2263_

"You got it, now up just a little more… see it down the end of the sights there? Fire away!"

Two loud bangs echoed in the still morning air. The first was enough, but probably just lucky: the bullet punched through the target (just a rusted old can) and the second blitzed over it and buried itself in the dust some distance beyond.

"Not bad, son!" dad praised, patting me on the head. His long grey coat snapped in the sudden gale and his hand moved down to shield my eyes as a cloud of dust billowed up.

When it died down I looked up at my father and beamed with pride. I was turning into a real crack shot with his old gun. A strange looking weapon, I hadn't seen any others like it on the folks we'd met before, and many of them had been rangers.

He looked down with approval, his brown hair blown out in funny angles by the wind. His eyes were the same colour but darker, a trait I inherited. They were soft now, but I'd seen them solidify, turn darker, before. Those were the days when he'd have missions, or the days when something went wrong. The rest of his face spoke of a rugged life. His beard always grew too thick; mum would complain about it and tell him to cut it. Sometimes he did. Usually when he wanted something.

In addition to the facial hair, Damien had a number of scars across his face, most of them caused by one nasty encounter with a Nightstalker, though one more he didn't often speak of slid along just above his right eye, disappearing into his hair, where for a short way no hair would grow.

"Go on, fire another round," he encouraged, his big hand patting me on the back before rising to point at another tin can, this one still swinging gently from the skeleton of a tree.

This time it took a few more rounds. I lined up the shot, fired, and then growled at my inaccuracy. I fired and it swung out of the way as if taunting me! The second shot missed, and I was convinced it was deliberately evading me. After all, I was supposed to be a crack shot, right? With a father like him, it must have just been in the blood!

Maybe it was mum's fault then…

The third shot missed too, and I sighed. "It's not working," I said, disappointed. "I don't get it, I'm aiming at it."

"Moving targets can be a little trickier, and even when you get really good you're never gonna hit every time," dad explained, kneeling down and leaning over my shoulder to check the gun sights as I aimed.

"But you're always on target, aren't you?" I wondered. I hadn't seen him miss, at least. Whenever he grabbed that gun of his, it was always to deliver a fatal shot. I'd never seen evidence to the contrary.

He laughed, and I could feel him shake his head next to mine. "Not always, no. But I try to put on a good show for you and your mother! Ah, now see, the problem here is that you're sitting the sights just on the can. What you've gotta do is put your target right there in the sights, a little under even, and then give the trigger a squeeze," was the explanation for my lack of skill.

Taking it on board, I let the gun sights wander up a little more, and did as told, squeezing the trigger.

This time, to my eternal delight, there was the sound of punctured metal following the bang, and the can started swinging again. I'd hit it! I was on my way to really knowing how to use this thing!

There was a deep bark behind me, and I happily turned to see Cerberus bounding towards me. With an oversized smile I greeted my best friend, reaching out a hand to run down his back, but something in the way he was barking seemed more urgent.

"What's wrong, mutt?" dad wondered, looking him over. He seemed fine. Not a problem with him then, clearly.

Immediately he spun and ran back away down the path towards home. Neither of us was completely sure what was going on, but as dad took the gun from my hands and turned to follow Cerberus at a run I understood it must have been important.

So I ran after them, towards the small dwelling we'd been taking shelter in for the past few days. We traveled a lot, that much I remember.

Because of dad, and his people. They were nomadic, never stayed in one place too long. Thought sinking your feet into any one place made you too easy to pin down and locate; which could lead to trouble down the road. They seemed to do okay as they were, salvaging machine parts to fuel the little two-way radios that contingent leaders carted about.

There was yelling in the camp, something was definitely up.

"Damien!" another man called from under a helmet, its red panels dull over a Pre-War gas mask of some kind, with a dome top looking like an old grunt's helmet protecting the rest of his head.

He wore a coat like dad's, except his was desert camouflage, and sat over a black riot armour vest. Simple jeans rounded off the ensemble: the uniform of the rangers.

"What's going on?" dad demanded, stepping forward with his gun firmly in hand.

"Henreid reported a swarm of Cazadores moving along the mountainside," one of the men said. "He thinks they must have noticed our presence in the area, and its pissin' 'em off."

Dad cast his eyes away across the hillside, and then looked back down at me. "Son, we've gotta deal with this. I know you're getting used to that gun, but I've gotta put it to good use in keeping this place nice and safe. Go inside and wait with your mother," he said, gesturing down to the large black dog that had now turned back to lick my face. "Take that mongrel with you."

He always called Cerberus stuff like 'mutt' and 'mongrel'. At first I thought he was being serious and that he actually had something against the dog, but after a while I realised it was said in a lighthearted way, no malice intended at all.

Now I was taking him with me into the small dwelling, which the rangers had been using for the past week as they stayed. Another and they'd be itching to get moving, on the road to another place to survive, patrol, do what they did.

Right now though they were defending it, keeping it safe from the creatures of the wastes as they attempted to take it from them.

When it was over I'd pick up that gun again, and learn how to use it. I'd master it, so that every shot I fired struck my target. That was something of a personal goal I set that day, and strove towards every moment my hands wrapped around that handle.

Where the hell is that gun now?

_~ The Silver Rush: Feel the rush of a warm laser in your hand! ~_

_24th October 2281_

"You know, I tried to measure my charisma on one of those Vit-o-Matic Vigor Testers once. The machine burst into flames."

The sun blasted down as it always did, warming him up too much under his coat, but he didn't remove it for fear of what that heat would do to his skin. Enough time spent in the Mojave Wasteland would teach anyone to respect the sun's wrath, and while his mind was dulled by the eclipse on his forehead, that was one instinct burned into him. He scratched his chin, cursing his shoddy work with the razor earlier that morning. It had been steadily going dull by the time Mitchell handed it back to him, but it had really decided to give up the ghost after the past few days. That morning he'd woken up and attempted once again to thin back the fuzz his face was growing. He'd succeeded in getting it down to a thin layer around his cheeks and around his neck, but to his dissatisfaction it remained thicker around his chin, where it had decided its blade would no longer cut efficiently, and Six had given up trying to negotiate with it.

He didn't care so much if he ended up with something of a beard, what irritated him was that he'd tried to get rid of it and failed.

Really, there was plenty in the last forty-eight hours to be irritated about, to say nothing of his very near death less than a week earlier.

Following his victory in Primm he'd scouted the Mojave Express, only to find that some Powder Ganger had gone there first. Notes had been torn up, scribbled on, sections of words that made for immature jokes were highlighted, or the rest blanked out. An old drum can sat in one corner, with several stacks of paper still burning by the time he got in there.

He'd salvaged everything he could, but nothing sparked memories. Slips of paper recording hundreds of deliveries, invoices for more, all of them mixed up and set alight.

His hope had burned with it: his role of courier was all he had to go by to direct him home. Now the only alternative was hunting down his former kin in the Great Khans and demanding answers, however he had to get them.

At one point he almost believed he'd found something: a charred roster of couriers still listed for active duty. He'd rolled through the list of between twenty and thirty names with decreasing joy. Some names, like 'Daniel Wyand' or 'Luke Vehletty' were complete entries that received nothing but a blank look from him, letting him know his name was not 'Luke' or 'Daniel', but worse, what was left was a mass of half-names which couldn't induce anything either, even though the courier _knew _that his name was buried in one of them.

'Alb...', 'Syl...', 'Nic...', '...inc...', '...aur...', '...drea', '...os', '...ve', '...sses'.

He'd thrown the roster on the counter in contempt and disappointment. Then he'd found the robot, one of the few things between his victory of the Gangers and his current situation that had brought him joy. A deactivated robot sat on the Mojave Express desk, an orb whose front was covered in a mesh grill, with a trio of antennae sprouting from crest above its 'face' and pointing backwards in some kind of streamlined design. The bottom was similar, with four antennae, and the rest of the machine's front was adorned with all manner of knobs and dials.

The strange grey orb had also acquired a few bumper stickers usually found in souvenir shops, supposedly to go on the Old War vehicles with witty slogans and other such statements the owner wished to display to the world. One claimed this little ball of wires and servos had a prestigious child who attended some place called 'Roosevelt Academy', wherever that was, and another was covered in letters and numbers: '2ED-E59', though the numbers seemed to have been deliberately scuffed off, leaving the machine to be 'ED-E'.

A quick examination of the thing had revealed a few bullet holes, probably from a high powered rifle of some kind. The casing was cracked and some of the internal mechanisms damaged, but almost instinctively Six's hands had moved to remedy the situation, working over the gizmos with a surprisingly amount of skill. The courier had grinned and forgotten his troubles as he tinkered with the little bot, and eventually given an exclamation of delight as something sparked, and he placed the last wire back where it went. The orb had buzzed and whirred, rising into the air in a great resurrection, before finally giving out a burst of static, followed by a collection of beeps and other electronic sounds. It seemed to use some kind of air pressure... thing to hover at about head height. Six understood how to hook it up, but less how the science aspect of it worked. Nor did he care, really. There was plenty about Pre-War technology he'd never hope to understand.

That was how ED-E had come to travel with him; after an exchange with Johnson Nash about the contents of his home and place of work, he'd happily agreed to let the courier take the floating ball with him, saying it was never his in the first place; someone else had delivered its shell to him expecting someone to fix it eventually. Exactly what had happened.

Six slept late that day, and struck out as it was nearing midday with ED-E in tow. Night had flowed on, the moon a thin crescent now, and the man who saved Primm had worried he wouldn't find a suitable place to bed that cold evening.

Eventually though, he'd found somewhere: what was left of a service station.

The place was Pre-War, obviously, and sometime after the bombs fell it looked like someone had set the petrol tanks underneath it on fire, and it had spread into the station itself. He'd spent the night under his coat, lying on the scraps of cloth he'd found sitting around the station; he hadn't been the only person to use it in the last two centuries, a fact which both comforted him and kept him a little on edge.

The morning began with ED-E blaring some strange western-esque fanfare, to which Six, sleepy and irate, grumbled in response. Then the thudding on the door had alerted him to something more dangerous than ED-E's fanfares, which he'd been far more inclined to wake up for.

Radscorpions!

"NCR Correctional Facility is under prisoner control following a successful riot. Locals should avoid anyone who looks like they've done time."

Born from the insectoid creatures that had roamed the desert in years before the Great War, Radscorpions were unoriginally named for being an effective equation of scorpion plus radiation equals bigger scorpion.

With pincers the size of the average man's head and stingers longer than an arm, they were dangerous creatures, no mistake. Their hides were strong, able to take considerable beatings and a few bullets if they were aimed wrong.

With its new owner awake, ED-E displayed an ability Six had suspected it had, but not known for sure: the small thing sticking forwards underneath its face was indeed a weapon, which fired small bolts of energy. Energy weapons had been favoured by many of the more technologically-minded peoples of the world, like the Brotherhood of Steel or the Enclave, but they balanced out their ability to ignore soft tissue entirely by being much less common than simple guns and bullets of the kind Six used.

The enormous things had come in a small group, noticing him somehow. Maybe he snored?

Either way, they were hungry, or just plain vicious and territorial, and they wanted him gone. Six shared the sentiment, and had emptied a few of his clips firing from the safety of the station, careful not to peer too far out any of the holes in the wall lest one of the scorpions tails find him. A wise decision, as one bright little devil had thrust its stringer straight into a hole in the wall Six was watching through from a distance; if he'd had his eye pressed against that peep-hole he might have been missing it soon after.

"The Helios One solar power plant remains dormant, despite NCR's effort to reactivate the facility. The chief scientist of the plant vowed to fix the problem, blaming it on an atmosphere of, quote, 'severe under-appreciation'."

When the smoke had cleared both he and ED-E had been alive. The scorpions less so. Not wanting to spend a minute longer, Six had promptly gathered up his things and left in a hurry, zipping down the highway at a quick walking pace, though over the course of another day on the road his attitude had soured. He'd been moving quickly out of panic, and once that settled only dull irritation followed him. The positives of the past while had faded into the background in favour of some considerably vocal negatives. Like being shot in the forehead. Twice.

"Got a song for you right now that's about a man that's cold on the exterior, but deep down ya'know he's a good man and his name is Johnny Guitar."

Mr. New Vegas finished his newscast on Six's arm and then switched to the slow, sad opening of a song, which Six immediately clicked off. Never liked that song anyway, but now it just pissed him off even further.

Coming back onto the main road from the service station he'd found an intersection, and conferred with his map to see which way would lead to his assailants. According to his Pip-Boy the road that wound east was his target, passing through a place called Nipton and up a considerable ways before it reached 'Novac', where they were headed.

Consulting his stock had told him his food was starting to run low. After having the Gangers raid them Primm hadn't been able to offer anything more than a can of beans, literally, and Six was highly suspicious of it given all the dents and scrapes on it. A shorter walk west led to a little checkpoint situated in the cleft of a rocky range, which his map identified as "NCR Mojave Outpost".

Taking his chances Six had moved that way, and now as he walked onwards he could see the outpost, or rather a monument towering above it. Standing on the hill like that, it was easy to spot from miles away, and looked out over much of the desert. From there he could probably see hours down the road.

As he neared, the monument became clear: two people shaking hands. Wasn't that nice? A monument to some kind of peace.

Closer still and he could make out features. One figure was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, with big shoulders and the kind of build that cut an armoured silhouette. The other wore what must have been a long trenchcoat, not unlike Six's, and some kind of helmet. The closer he got, the more he could appreciate the sculptor's work. The one wearing the hat had a nose, and indentations to signify the eyes. Individual digits on the hands. The other was a bit rougher, with more generalised shapes used for the helmet; flat panels for the eyes, smooth, round pieces for the gas mask breathers.

To truly complete the look though, the entire monument had been built out of scrap metal welded together and around a wire framework. It looked as ridiculous as it did impressive.

Seeing it, though, Six's irritation only flared up again. Bullets to the brain, scorpion alarm clocks, convicts torching his chance at learning who he was, and now a trash monument in the desert depicting some lovely union between what used to be two separate factions of jerks who were now one faction of jerks.

Why was he in such a bad mood today? He got closer, and it struck him how similar that trenchcoated figure looked to some of the men his father had been with during his dream. So who were they?

Amidst the generally sour mood, curiosity bubbled up, eager to find out, and his pace again quickened. ED-E hovered along behind him, bobbing up and down like it was swimming through the air.

As he neared the monument, his eyes fell to the checkpoint behind it. Nestled in between the two rocky masses, this wannabe pass had been walled and gated, with buildings running along both sides. Chain link fences ran around off walls and extended around the rock faces to make pens, where numerous two-headed cows – Brahmin were situated, lazily observing passerby with all four of their eyes.

Atop the nearest building to his left was a small collection of sandbag walls atop which he could see a wide-brimmed hat, very similar to the one the monumental man wore.

In front of that, hanging on another fence, was a sign bearing the two-headed bear. Around the white backdrop of the flag, the sign was red, leaving room for the white letters "NCR RANGER OUTPOST" to be painted above the flag. Below was the location's designation: simply "MOJAVE".

Well, if he needed any more hints as to where he was, there they were. Something caught his eye as his legs finally found purchase on level ground instead of the draining uphill battle it had been until then. A little plaque sat on a pedestal underneath the monument. Dragging himself over to it, Six leaned over to read it.

_In the year 2271, the Desert Rangers of Nevada and rangers of the New California Republic met at this spot to sign the Ranger Unification Treaty. Under this treaty, the Desert Rangers agreed to be absorbed into the NCR in exchange for NCR's protection of Hoover Dam, New Vegas, and southern Nevada against the forces of Caesar's Legion._

He read it a few times, his mind processing it. Ten years ago, then. The Desert Rangers… the people around his father. His family. They'd been traveling alongside them. Was his father one of them then?

Was he still one of them? Could Six find him, learn who he was that way? It had to be worth a shot.

Despite his initial distaste of the monument, he found that now he rather appreciated its existence.

"Coming from the north? Must be crazy to brave those roads."

Six looked up to see a man in the brown armour of the NCR. His dark hair was formed into an impressive beard underneath the well-shaven top. His dark skin spoke of a lot of days in the sun.

"Nice junk monument," the courier said, with a little bit of genuine praise.

The man chuckled and looked up at the massive four storey thing. "Mostly good for shade. Won't do much else when the Legion reaches here," he said, bored. This didn't look like the kind of outpost that saw much fighting.

He made to make conversation, and instead heard a crack from one of his knees as he stretched it – not a painful one, but something that said he'd had enough walking for the day. The sky was gold overhead, descending into a flaring orange.

"You look like you've walked a ways, so if you need to shake that dust off, head to the Barracks," the man said, gesturing to the first building on the left. "The bar's there too. Not much, but it's better than nothing."

Six simply nodded, forcing his legs to move that way, giving the man a "thanks" as he moved. ED-E continued to bob along behind him, occasional pieces of static emanating from within it quietly.

Wandering through a gate in the fence, he moved past a small outdoor eating area that was empty; a few picnic tables and a small fire pit made up the little yard in front of the rather small barracks. Pushing one of the double doors inwards, Six stepped into the warmth and quiet hum of what was both the watering hole and sleeping quarters of the military men and women keeping posts at this checkpoint.

The same pale white walls that many buildings sported made up the interior of the barracks, with tiled floor of the same description. Sitting in the middle of the room was the bar, a counter running all the way around a collection of back-to-back shelves stocked with bottles of various drinks including water, alcohol, and trademark cola and sarsaparilla.

Soldiers of varying rank paced between the bar and through a doorway leading into the sleeping quarters proper; a room filled with bunk beds in rows. Some had already turned in for the night he could see as one passed through and sat down at the bar.

Finding himself an empty stool to sit on, the courier situated himself between one man clutching a bottle of scotch and staring intently at three shot glasses on the counter in front of him as if he expected the alcohol to leap from the bottle into them merely at his mental suggestion, and a redhead in a ten galleon hat even further into her drinking still, with two empty bottles of whiskey standing at her elbows like a gateway to the third, that she had yet to open.

ED-E continued to hover behind him, silently watching over his shoulder as he flagged down the woman tending the bar and began discussing his need for supplies, something more immediate for consumption, and a place to sleep for the evening. Pleasantly surprised, he found lodgings were free as long as he found a bunk that hadn't already been claimed, and with that he collected his small collection of caps and began trading.

He'd collected a few cobs of corn and a small fortune of apples and was considering whether or not it was worth putting down some money to carry a few slices of meat out with him the following morning when the redhead to his right attacked the bottle of whiskey with a vengeance that astounded him, ripping the top off and promptly sculling as much in one go as she could manage.

The courier stared at her a few moments, in silent awe. She noticed.

"Looking for trouble?" she demanded.

"Looking, but so far that's it," Six admitted, looking at what was less than half a bottle of whiskey.

The woman waved a hand dismissively. "Well keep looking. I'll set your eyes spinning," she warned. "Got no time for gawkers, or anyone looking for something I ain't selling."

Courier Six was taken aback. "Surprised you can even see me from that far into your bottle," he replied hostilely.

She dragged one empty bottle over and spat in it. The man on Six's other side chuckled and poured himself three shots of scotch finally. "Don't mind her. She's been in here all day every day for a while now. We're all expecting her to turn to stone eventually," he explained, before hammering back each of the shots one after the other and shaking himself as they slammed his brain.

Six looked him over. He was a man about his age, with a long face and sharp chin. His eyes were a radiant green under sand-blonde hair that observed carefully despite the alcohol that had just blasted his system. He was sporting a layer of facial hair over his jutting chin, not yet thick but carefully excluded from his shaving routine to form something of a goatee.

"Tch. Drinking used to cause all sorts of trouble back West – before I punched enough people, that is, and they learned to lay low when the whiskey hit," the woman growled, seemingly yet another warning about how people here had yet to learn that lesson.

Deciding to go with what was so far the more amiable choice, Six ordered a bottle of nuka cola and turned to the other man, who he realised was wearing the same armour and wide brimmed hat the monument did – that of the New California Republic Rangers. "So what's her problem?" he asked, loud enough for the surly woman to his right to hear him.

"Lost my caravan heading north, the driver burned to ash – and they didn't even take the cargo, just burned that too," she said in the same tone, pissed on two levels, before spitting into her empty bottle again and glaring at the whiskey that had escaped her mouth. "My guess is Legion, they're trying to cut the NCR's supply line… and the Mojave Outpost is proof. Got us locked up tighter than a New Vegas virgin. No caravans in, out, and just try arguing with Jackson about it. 'Roads aren't safe' he says! No shit, you washed-out old fuckup, I didn't need a Brotherhood Scribe to tell me that!"

The man on Six's left tensed and looked along the table at her. "Take it easy, Cassidy. Jackson's in a lose-lose situation as is, but he's saving lives this way. No need to piss all over him because of it."

Six looked between them both, confused. "Who's Jackson?"

"NCR officer, trooper, whatever – runs the place. He's over in the main building, the one without a bar," Cassidy muttered, then savagely attacked her whiskey again, downing what was left as the other man leaned over the counter.

"Jackson's the Ranger they put in charge of the outpost," he explained somewhat more helpfully. "Because of the troubles in the road he's had to suspend traffic along the roads, and a lot of people aren't happy. Miss Cassidy here clearly one of those people. What she and many others fail to take into account of course is that if he just lets them go off walking around like they own the Long 15 chances are they'll wind up Deathclaw shit. I'd like to see you get drunk off your ass and bitch about Jackson then, Cassidy."

She ignored him, beating the counter and swiping the next bottle of whiskey the bartender handed her without so much as a thank you. A nuka cola cap slammed the table and she was back to glaring at the liquid, sizing it up before she destroyed it in some tribal self-destruction ritual.

"So, uh, anything going on around here?" the courier asked after a few minutes of silence. "I'm not here long, but it's important to keep up with the news, right? Maybe somewhere interesting here?"

Cassidy laughed. "You're looking at it. It's a watering hole without much to brag about."

The ranger to his left began pouring shots again. "Unless you're into paperwork, this is really more the sort of place you pass through. It's not built for entertainment," he clarified. "Lots of documentation about merchant caravans wanting to pass through and getting delayed thanks to the troubles on the road."

"If you don't have a gun and a will, don't matter much what you do when you reach here, except stare at that fucking monument outside. It's like NCR showing its dick to all the East."

The ranger tensed again, visibly irate with Cassidy's berating of what must have been considered an important landmark to the NCR, but the drunken woman was on a roll now.

"If the republic put as much effort into protecting the East as they put into those two asinine giants outside they'd be worth that monument. Statues of two men shaking hands covered in blood don't seem to be nothing to brag about."

Ignoring her grammar, Six looked back and forth between the two people sitting either side of him and wondered just how deep the hole he'd tripped and fallen into by sitting down was.

"Covered in blood? That's enough, Cassidy," the ranger said sternly. "Just because your caravan got taken out and there's a little bit of red tape, there's no need to-"

"I'm speaking figurative, isn't any blood on their damn hands, Richard. Course, when Caesar comes walking through here, there'll be blood for real. And after that blood dries in the sun, he'll melt that jet-induced sculpture down, and reshape it into a bull."

"_Ranger Morgan_ to you, Cassidy. Now goddamn it-"

"Which by my reckoning is making up for a deficiency of his. But no matter what the state of his pecker, he's sure giving the West a good fucking. As far as those two iron lovebirds go, they've got more spine than you'll see in a year from the NCR government."

"That's enough!" Ranger Morgan spat, slamming his bottle of scotch on the counter. "If you've got such a goddamn problem with the NCR then maybe you'd better put on some rags and swim across the fucking Colorado River, see if Caesar sorts out your fucking caravan woes!"

Cassidy looked across at him, her eyes unfocused but undeniably angry. "Very fucking funny, _Richard_," she hissed, snatching her bottle of whiskey off the counter, slipping unsteadily off the stool and wandering out the bar door into the early night.

Richard sighed, holding his shot glass up to the light and looking at the liquid within. "Sorry you had to be a part of that, drifter," he apologised, offering his hand. "Richard Morgan. Recently passed my Ranger exam, then got sent here to wait and see where I get shipped off to."

The courier shook his hand and leaned on the counter, sipping the bubbly cola he'd bought. "Just stick with 'drifter'. I see not everyone is happy with how things are running around here," he replied.

The ranger glanced at the door Cassidy had walked through and shook his head. "Cass is certainly the most vocal, but there's a lot of people around here fed up with all the waiting. Plenty of folks understand why though; the road north really ain't the kind of trek any caravan can just wander up. Radio reckons even as far down as Primm is in trouble, and the road further north just gets worse with those escaped convicts, and then once you hit Sloan, well, you're in for an even bigger shock when the real monsters start bearing down on you. East and you're just walking towards Legion camps beyond Nipton, but between now and then I hear Ghost say she's spotted raiders squatting in what's left of a roadside station," Morgan explained wearily. "Surely folks understand how much of a risk they take just by taking steps toward the Mojave, but we can't just let them throw their lives away in some fool's dash for New Vegas."

Courier Six looked at him, and then back to where Cass had been sitting. "Can't the NCR do something about that then?" he wondered.

Ranger Morgan chuckled again, looking at the scotch still in the bottle. He ordered a Sunset Sarsaparilla, and then turned back to the courier as he poured it into two of the shot glasses, topping both with a quarter of the alcohol. "We're trying, but it's no easy task. The Mojave's uncivilised at the best of times. The people here don't exactly jump at the prospect of subscribing to Californian rule. They see taxes and laws and recoil like it's a pile of Brahmin dung on offer. But these are hard times – the Legion would do much worse by these people if it weren't for us, and we're what's stopping that from happening."

He offered Six one of the shots, which he politely declined. "Hell, we're not perfect, that's for damn sure. Sometimes the paperwork looks ridiculous, but I'll take paperwork over crucifying every bastard who disobeys the rules, right?"

Now it was the courier's turn to chuckle. "You're saying you look good beside Caesar's Legion?" he asked coyly.

"My friend, beside Caesar's Legion we look like fucking white knights in shiny gilded armour and great big feathery wings," Richard replied, draining his glass. "I think people forget that, around here."

"Maybe they do," Six thought absently, feeling a twinge in his scar. He rubbed it and winced. "Maybe they do," he repeated.

Morgan noticed the eclipse over his forehead and gestured to it. "That's a pretty impressive looking scar. If you don't mind my asking, where'd it come from?"

Taking another sip of the sweet bubbly soda, Six added a little gravel to his tone to fit the story. "I'm a courier. One night, passing through Goodsprings, I was hit by a little gang of robbers. They knocked me out and stole the delivery, then decided to put me out of business. Two bullets – _bang bang! _– straight to the forehead."

Richard's eyes widened. "Those are bullet wounds? You're fucking with me," he declared.

"No sir I am not," Courier Six declared. "Two to the face, and I'm still walking. Needed a bit of recovery time, mind you, and were it not for a rather suspicious robot cowboy guardian angel skulking around the graveyard I'd probably just be rotting in a shallow grave by now. But lo and behold, I am the courier who rose from the dead, and I'm tracking those bastards down so I can take my package back and get it delivered right. Maybe dish out a little wasteland justice too after I find out why it was worth murdering me for such a small delivery…"

Morgan listened intently, glancing at Six's scar occasionally as the courier recounted his time in Goodsprings and the journey down to Primm.

When the story was finished Six had earned the ears of more than just Morgan, as the woman tending the bar leaned on the counter in front of him, and a few soldiers around him had fallen silent to listen to this courier recount not only his own death, but his subsequent rise from the grave and defeat of the Powder Gangers in both Goodsprings and Primm.

"Well I'll be damned," Richard said finally. "Hell of a story if ever there was one."

"Not finished yet, either," the courier replied, reaching the bottom of his bottle of cola.

Steadily the soldiers around them fell back into talking amongst themselves, some of them using this impressively durable courier as a new point of conversation.

"Here's to a satisfactory conclusion, then," Ranger Morgan said, raising a glass.

"I'll drink to that," the drifter replied, tapping his bottle against the shot glass and then finishing its contents.

Morgan leaned on the counter and swirled what was left in the bottle of scotch around absent-mindedly, before passing it over to the bartender. "Lacey, hold onto this for me, would you?" he requested. The bartender took it and stored it away under the counter somewhere as Richard checked his wrist, strapped to which was an old watch with a cracked window into the ticking timekeeper within. "Ah, shit, I told Ghost I'd go up and keep her company by now. Do me a favour, since you're heading Nipton way. She wants someone to check up on the place, been saying something about smoke since yesterday afternoon," he requested.

"I don't intend to come back this way," Six pointed out as Morgan slipped off his stool and ordered a second bottle of sarsaparilla to take up to his fellow ranger on the roof.

Richard shrugged. "Well she can see pretty far with that sniper scope of hers. Maybe you can work out a way of sending her a signal. Hah, she's talking about smoke; get her to teach you smoke signals. A circle for 'everything's fine', a cross for 'bad news', and see if you can get some real craftsmanship in there and make a bull for 'oh fuck, I see slaving raider pricks'. Doesn't sound too complicated," he laughed, and clapped Six on the back. "Drop by in the morning before you leave, I'll shout you a free bottle of whatever takes your fancy for the road. Maybe some of that Nuka Cola Quartz, since you don't strike me as a drinker."

"I might just do that," the courier replied as the ranger left, stretching and standing up. ED-E beeped as he pushed the floating ball out of his way and made for the sleeping quarters to claim a bed.

There was plenty of available bedding, so he selected one against a wall and settled in for the night, shuffling about until he was comfortable. Looking up at the hovering orb that had become a de facto pet, he asked "Do you have a power down function or anything?"

At the words 'power down' ED-E sunk to the ground with a few clicks and then made a sound like a television turning off as it touched down.

Rolling over, Six muttered "that answers that," before closing his eyes and promptly falling asleep in the comfort of a real mattress.

_~Hearts: One of four traditional playing suits used in most modern card games. Its tarot equivalent is 'cups', and it is associated with the classical element of water._


	7. Sixth Hand: Clubs

And here we have the opposite end of the scale. We've seen the bear. Now..._**  
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><p><em><strong>Sixth Hand – Clubs<strong>_

_25th October 2281_

The dream had been confusing this time, harsh on his mind, yet the comfortable mattress beneath him had not only softened it, it had veiled it. Or maybe the sounds of someone arguing were in the Barracks, and his dream was supposed to be pleasant. He remembered two men arguing over the NCR. Amusingly, in retrospect, it wasn't all that unlike Cass and Morgan's argument in the bar that evening.

One had thrown a hand out over the landscape, his fingers curling into a fist sans one, which directed the other to leave. Promptly, the command was obeyed, with harsh words spoken over his shoulder and comments about a pride that was no longer upheld.

The drifter couldn't help but think the man who had walked away was him. He didn't recognise either voice, but they seemed to be intentionally distorted - like this was a memory affected by the bullets to his head in a stronger sense than merely being submerged. He could have been arguing for or against the NCR, citing flaws or merits he forgot upon waking, but either way it hadn't been enough to make an entry over.

He'd risen, finished his trading with the bartender, who'd swapped to an old man overnight. He'd added a few more apples, extra bottles of purified water, and then, after examining ED-E, turned around and asked for a slice of meat for him to cook come dinner, finding to his delight that ED-E's spherical frame housed an empty bay in the back that he could use for storing items.

Piling the apples, water, and his last caravan lunchbox into there, Six had sighed with delight as his coat now held within it a much lighter amount of caps to jingle about, one wrapped slab of Brahmin meat he'd whip up into a steak come nightfall, and his combat essentials.

After a second thought he'd pulled a few of the apples and two bottles of water from the hovering ball and placed the meat there instead, deciding it'd be better to have some readily available food that could last a while over something juicy but fleeting in the event ED-E became inaccessible. Hopefully ED-E's frame had enough cooling units in there to keep the meat from spoiling after one day. The heat could get pretty bad some days, and he'd hate to sit down for a good dinner only to find eating forfeited the next day to some nasty stomach sickness.

As Ranger Morgan had requested, he found the wooden ramp someone had half-heartedly hammered onto the rear of the barracks, which wound up around the corner of the building, creaking all the way up until it met the roof as an equal. Uneasy about it, Six had ascended it and felt the planks shift and twist under him until he stepped with something akin to relief onto the arguably more solid roof of the barracks.

Sitting in an old metal chair in front of a table was the Ghost he'd been told about. The nickname became apparent; she was an albino, and from her attitude, she hadn't been treated well because of it. After introducing himself and having a very to-the-point speech about her job as both Ranger and the Outpost's all-important lookout, she'd explained Nipton.

Recently, she'd noticed a plume of smoke over the town. Small now, but it had been larger the day before, and she was worried something had happened. Like he had to Morgan the previous night, Six explained he wasn't coming back, and Ghost had promptly barked something about knowing how people like 'him' were before handing him two long scraps of cloth and explaining that the first, blue, was to be placed on the Nipton town sign if the town was alright, and the plumes of smoke were either nothing to worry about or completely under control by the time he arrived. The second, a red one, was for the opposite; if raiders had hit the town, or the Powder Gangers, or both.

Seeing no harm in carrying two scraps of blue and red on his person, Six had agreed without resistance, and had even managed to coax a reward out of Ghost for it - a heavier handgun. Following their deal, he slipped over the side of the barracks, preferring the express route to the rickety gradual slope, and felt Ghost's disapproving glare as he walked away, past Cass, still snoring loudly into the picnic table she'd fallen asleep at the night before.

For a short ways Ranger Morgan had found him and walked alongside him, discussing the Mojave's political situation. He talked at length about the NCR's ability to bring civilisation to the harsh and untamed wasteland they now strolled through, and Six, rubbing sleep from his eyes, listened attentively, thought boredom gradually snuck into that. Finally, the Ranger had decided he could go no further, and turned to walk back to his post, bidding the courier a farewell and then pivoting on one foot like he'd probably been trained to do throughout his military career.

Alone once more, Six had continued his trek down the Nipton highway. Sitting on the side of the road as he'd approached was a rough collection of walls, what might have once been a small collection of buildings. A road store perhaps, or another station for the mythical substance of 'petrol'. As he neared closer a group of men had emerged from the ruins, and immediately the drifter became aware of what he'd walked into. A highwayman ambush.

Morgan had warned him, and he'd still walked right into it.

These weren't simple Powder Gangers though. They wore leather armour, patches stretched across their fronts, haphazardly sewn together over ragged clothing of various lengths.

Five of them, the last walking with a confident swagger and dressed in some kind of metal getup that clearly defined him as their leader. He'd carried a shotgun in one hand as he moved, and when he'd come closer, Six had seen him grin and winced. His teeth had been filed into sharp points. His companions were the same, grinning that disturbing, sharp toothed grin.

To his left, quite a ways, had been a billboard, the old thing tattered and missing chunks, but nonetheless it remained standing. Cover if he found he needed it.

The leader of the highwaymen (an inappropriate title, two of the members were female) had snarled a threat and demanded Six give in and turn himself over for a quick death. He was about to ask why robbers wanted travellers dead when he'd seen the headless corpse of another traveller lying on a blanket one of the gang members had thrown down. Pink, raw flesh with evidence of burns, but worse than that, his shirt was open, and his stomach had been torn into, as if by animals.

There were _teeth _marks around the gaping hole.

Cannibals and raiders. The kind of mix that tore pieces from his faith in humanity as they tore pieces from their next meal.

He wasn't interested in being anyone's dinner. So instead, he'd told these raiders, whom he later learned were part of a wider, now fragmented group called the Jackals, a story about a courier.

Then he'd asked the leader if he thought he'd manage the same thing. The shotgun had come up... and dropped back down again as Six planted a bullet in the bastard's head and watched it sprout a brain-plant out the other side. Sensing the change, ED-E's artificial intelligence had picked up on threats that were deemed as unfriendly, and promptly it opened fire, sending lances of white hot energy into one of the Jackal women as she'd drawn a pistol she'd foolishly left in its holster. She never had a chance.

Suddenly the air had become home to a small collection of bullets, made more exciting by blasts of light from ED-E, who hovered to follow Six as he threw himself behind the billboard. In the adrenaline Six had only winced as a bullet bit his leg as it glanced past, but later it had been a stinging wound. The metal sphere he called a companion had taken a few rounds as well, but its metal shell had shrugged them off, dented and misshapen for the assault, but not compromised.

Staying behind the board, Six had taken a deep breath and weighed his chances. Three Jackal members... those were numbers he could handle, given what he'd done to the convicts in Primm, though the element of surprise did a lot to aid him there.

In a moment without gunfire he'd slipped around the corner, checked where his foes stood, and taken another shot, this one tearing into the torso of a man, knocking him down but not taking him out.

Then the bullets had started up again, with one woman screeching, half-obscenities, half-unintelligible noises.

A moment later the air was thick with hoots and savage calls, and Six's heart sank.

Now there were more of them, appearing from some other location. Another raid perhaps.

He hazarded a glance around the billboard, taking a few pot shots with no success, and then whipped himself back around the corner and breathed a panicked breath. At least four had joined the party.

Bad odds. Very bad, even if ED-E could take a few direct shots. Hopefully they'd get tired of waiting first and try making their way around the wall of cover he'd managed to put between himself and them.

He checked his new handgun's ammunition supply. It was somewhat less than his smaller weapon, but this was a larger N99 pistol, chambered for ten millimetre rounds which made it pack just that much more punch.

Unlike the man in the checkered suit he intended to make sure every headshot was fatal, not simply mentally taxing.

"Come on out traveler! We just wanna have dinner!" one of the Jackals called, followed by a round of cheering agreement and cackling laughter.

"Well alright then!" Courier Six replied, slipping around the corner and firing a few more rounds, most of which went wide, but one struck true, straight into the torso of one of the men. In the explosion of renewed tension that followed the courier wasn't sure if he'd struck the heart or not, but he was satisfied with an incapacitated foe.

ED-E, following his example, bobbed out into the road and sent a few more searing bolts towards the gang, who roared and jeered something about how ballsy the sphere was, before it was forced to retreat with another few dings and dents.

Part of Six chuckled at the irony in calling ED-E ballsy. The other half continued silently panicking. He couldn't keep up the cover game forever, especially not if only one in five rounds were to even strike flesh.

Slipping over to the other side, he hazarded a glance through a scrap of missing metal where something much larger than an N99 had fired in the past.

His eyes widened considerably at what he saw. The Jackals still had three members that he could see aiming where he would be, but two others, upon verifying the death of at least one of their team mates, had actually fallen upon the corpse and were already ripping into it.

He was just trying to be snarky; he hadn't genuinely tried to provide them with sustenance.

As one wrenched their head back and took a chunk of pectoral muscle with them, Six promptly stumbled back from the hole and vomited. Taking a deep breath, he took a moment to steady himself.

Then vomited again.

He heard a cackle, much closer now, and whirled, firing indiscriminately. His panic awarded him nothing, and he dropped again to the side of the billboard, wrenching a bottle of water from within his coat and pouring it into his face before gulping down mouthfuls. This was bad; he was disorientated and heavily outnumbered. His enemies were cannibals, meaning all he'd done by reducing their numbers was providing the leftovers with… leftovers.

He fought back another upshot of bile at the thought, and took another deep breath to steady his fraying nerves. His leg throbbed as the ability to fight off the pain began to subside.

He grit his teeth. He'd survived being in the Great Khans if his dreams were to be believed. He'd known members of the fabled Desert Rangers. He'd been shot in the head and he'd lived! Cannibalistic raiders were _not _impressive enough to kill him, dammit!

A wind picked up, and fluttered his coat, as if encouraging this strange indignant fury that had bubbled up from the depths.

That's right. That coat was a legacy, one that even if he'd never understand again he would refuse to compromise or ever stop trying to live up to. He stood up, and ignored the sting of protest from his leg.

Slipping his smaller pistol from its holster he checked them both and loaded full clips. "ED-E, you take the other side," he commanded.

Something glinted in the sun to the north, away to his left, but he ignored it as he burst from behind the billboard screaming, firing from both of his weapons.

The Jackals were caught by surprise, having pushed this fox into a corner only to find the ferocity with which he fought back in such a situation.

Two went down immediately, his rampage catching one in the neck and the other, painfully in the crotch. A third was blasted aside by ED-E's laser blasts. The two who were feeding promptly ignored their disgusting meal and jumped to their feet, reaching for forgotten weapons and howling like their namesakes.

Snarling in defiance, Six blasted one clean through the eye, only to see four more Jackals burst from behind another section of destroyed wall whooping and screeching in delight as this traveler reduced their food demand from more than ten mouths to five at the most, with fresh meat to last them another few days.

ED-E continued to fire, unaware that this change in odds reduced their chances from a surprise counter to a storm of bullets without cover. To its credit, the little machine managed to singe one of the Jackal's shoulders, knocking his gun from his hand with a snarl, but the others were advancing with rifles aimed squarely at the troublesome courier without a trace of mercy.

Then something nobody accounted for happened.

A hail of gunfire seared across the group of four Jackals, and simultaneously a blast of energy fire noticeably different to ED-E's own brand of assault not only struck the second of the feeding Jackals, but disintegrated her entirely, leaving a mess of vaguely human shaped dust on the ground that quickly spread to the winds.

Six didn't question the incredible stroke of luck, he just pressed the assault. "Do you know who you're dealing with!" he roared, blasting the Jackal ED-E had singed in the shoulder through the knee with the stronger of his two pistols.

One of the Jackals, disorientated and terrified by this single drifter completely annihilating the gun, turned and bolted, leaving her comrades to the hands of the courier.

The remaining two healthy Jackals didn't even get a chance to fire before another wave of gunfire blasted them down, leaving their corpses to join both the eaten and uneaten at this morbid ambush point to serve as a warning to any other gang who though it might make a good encampment.

Panting in honest surprise and exhaustion as the adrenaline began to fade; Six dropped both his guns and collapsed onto a knee, grunting as the wound in his leg finally demanded his attention. He didn't have any stimpaks for quick healing; the things were always quite a bit more expensive than food and simple bandages.

So for a few minutes he just sat quietly, recovering from his bizarre experience. Finally, he looked up again, casting his eye out north, over the Ivanpah Dry Lake where the gunfire and laser blasts had come from, but nothing emerged from the dust billowing across it, and as he looked he could see no shapes moving within it from this far away. Besides, he'd let his world narrow to the small patch of road on which he knelt for at least ten minutes. More than enough time for any Samaritan or opportunist to slip away again.

Pulling himself to his feet again, he drank what was left of the newly opened bottle of water and set to walking down the road again, the female Jackal forgotten. He didn't expect her to trouble him again though.

"Nice going there, Ed," he said, to a chorus of beeps and other electronic sounds from his companion.

He set off, wincing through the stinging in his leg, hoping to reach Nipton by nightfall.

The day wore on, afternoon shedding its blue attire for dusky orange. His shadow steadily grew longer as the sun lowered itself to perch on the mountains in the west like a sniper, the reflection from its scope blazing into his back, infusing the back of his dark grey attire with warmth before it slipped away, finally leaving the shores of the Boneyard, formerly 'Los Angeles', the site of a legendary battle and the birth of one of the many wasteland legends; this one about a simple man from a Vault trying to protect his home.

The town of Nipton appeared and slid across the landscape as he moved, the sting in his leg turning into a dull stabbing pain that he ignored as best he could.

He continued moving, as the moon climbed into the sky, a black sphere, the last sliver of its wane appearing the night prior and a newborn one rising now.

Finally nearing it, he paused a moment and tilted his head to see the darkened sign. Some of the lettering was too small to see in the darkness, but the town's name was quite clear in the dim starlight.

Squinting further down the road he could see light spilling along the main street of the small town. The way the light flickered and the column of smoke above it told him that it was the fire Ghost had believed she'd seen. Breathing another sigh, which turned into a grunt partway as Six stumbled on his bad leg, he hoped it was just a bonfire. Maybe some week long celebration or something. Hopefully.

A shadow soared along the wall of a building and then vanished into the darkness, and the drifter narrowed his eyes. It was hard to see tonight with the darkness all around, but something was moving towards him. Fast.

He drew his gun and aimed it into the darkness before him. "ED-E, what is it?" he asked, hoping the robot could see in something other than human vision. Heat, or simply night vision maybe.

But he didn't need to ask. The quickly approaching shadow made itself heard before it – he came into view.

"YEAH! WHO WON THE LOTTERY! I DID!" he screamed. He was wearing a black security vest over the blue long-sleeved shirt of the New California Republic Correctional Facility. His brown hair was messy and held at odd angles by something darker and more worrying than simple hair gel, and his bespectacled face was filled with some kind of stunned triumph, probably like Six's had been only hours before.

He grinned, seemingly only more insane by the moment, and spoke again, only slightly more quiet. "Smell that air! Couldn't ya just drink it like booze!" he exclaimed, and Six wasn't sure if it was phrased as a question or a rhetoric.

Rhetoric. He knew what that meant. Smarter than a _lot _of wastelanders. Or at least a larger vocabulary. Nice. Good for wowing people and confusing the more simpleminded without needing violence. Maybe consider doing that more often instead of just outright fighting. Saves bullets and avoids wounds.

Back to the matter at hand.

The Powder Ganger was giggling like a teenage girl with a crush. He held the gun steady. "You're one of the Powder Gangers. Did you-?" the courier began, but the man, wide eyed and doing nothing to help his insanity case, jumped on the words and replied without thinking.

"Powder Ganger! What? I mean, yeah, used to be one, sure! But no more! Powder Ganger is _smalltime_, man! I'm a winner! I won the mo-ther-fuck-ing lott-er-eeeee!" he cackled, spinning on the spot and belting out another laugh whose pitch rose and fell like a rollercoaster.

The courier took a step back. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he demanded. "What lottery?"

"What lottery!" the man parroted, stifling a giggle. "_The _lottery, that's what lottery! Are you stupid! Only lottery that matters! Oh my _GOD_, smell that air!"

Thoroughly thrown off, Six winced as he put weight on his bad leg and stumbled aside, deciding to just hope this was an isolated case in Nipton. Some Ganger with a mental illness.

"Bye!" the man giggled politely, actually skipping away down the road. Six stared after him for as long as the light would allow, and heard the man scream at the top of his lungs in some kind of animalistic cry of triumph before he broke into a sprint and disappeared into the night.

Wincing again, Six limped into town, noticing another fire further down the road, a bonfire burning through wood, tires, and anything else that could be piled on. It seemed contained, for now.

The buildings here were a little older and more art deco than the houses in Primm or Goodsprings, but only a little; somewhere back in the town's history there'd been an architect who liked the style perhaps, and he'd attempted to design as many buildings as he could. Over the years the extra chunks had come away or been ripped off, leaving the same aesthetic as nearly all the Mojave's buildings: one of degradation and the fall of mankind's handiwork. A message that remained clear and ever-present in the minds of everyone even two-hundred years following the death of the Old World, though the number of people around to witness it (which was a surprisingly large amount, given the time differentiation) dwindled as the years marched on.

The town only had three streets now, though in Pre-War times it must have been more. Two ran parallel, west to east, with one main street starting at an intersection at the steps of the town hall and running south to create a mirror of that 'T' with the second road, the one Six reached the corner of now.

He turned and looked down the main street.

His jaw dropped.

Instead of breath only a ragged shred of oxygen managed to escape his throat before it closed up, catching words where they might have formed, though nothing came to Six's mind as he stared down the main street.

He didn't need the blue cloth.

No, Nipton was not under control. The situation was not alright.

He wasn't even sure the red cloth would work.

This wasn't raiders.

At the other end of the street was another bonfire. Speared into its peak, like a flag at a volcanic summit, was a flagpole. Rested at its peak, hanging down with its bottom converging into a stabbing point like a 'v', was a red flag. A golden border ran around its edge, and in the centre was a silhouette, a golden bull, its horns curving forward and jutting up at their ends, its tail flicked up over its back as it stood proud, facing right – to the east.

Lying atop the burning pile of broken timber, tires and clothing were people. Long dead, stripped bare by the flames or worse, scorched until they barely looked human, but the sheer amount of them was enough to tell Six what they were. Some were even impaled on the now charred pieces of timber, which probably would have fallen to ash in their wounds if a strong wind picked up.

But that wasn't even the half of it. Lying against the side of the corner store was a woman's body in a dress that would once have shown off plenty and asked for more. Now it was ripped open revealing everything. Lying half a metre further up the street was what the courier assumed was her head.

The body of a large dark-skinned man lay across the street from her, most of him in the gutter. Like the woman, his head was missing, sitting in front of a collapsed tree.

Another headless corpse… and another… five littered the street, two women, and three men. One wore the scraps of an NCR uniform, and his head was situated within his helmet like a bucket, which in turn was cradled in his arms.

Every now and again was a head without a corpse, presumably a body burned after decapitation. These heads found a plot other than the street, however; impaled upon spears that thrust into the sky in a sinister display.

Somehow it didn't stop there. All down the street, numbering at least thirty, there were crosses dug into the ground, or with their bases weighed down with debris so they wounded tip over. Hanging naked, their wrists roped at either end of the crossbeams, were people. Over half of the crosses were 'occupied', and the blood stains Six could see as he slowly stepped down through this gallery of horror told him at one stage they'd all held a person of their own.

None of the people looked up as he moved by. Some of them were still drawing ragged breath, but the courier realised that they no longer had the strength to lift their heads and watch him walk by or enough saliva in their mouth to speak. Some of them didn't even have tongues.

One of them was new to a cross. A woman, who still had enough in her to look up as he passed, bared her teeth in some pathetic attempt at maintaining her ferocity. They were filed into points, and Six realised it was the only Jackal who had managed to escape the gunfight at the ambush.

The town hall loomed up at the end of the street, an ominous shadow that jutted up into the sky in the centre, a third floor for an authority figure on top of the two storeys that the hall already contained.

Shadows stood tall against the building as its based was illuminated by the crackling flames of the grotesque bonfire. The flags lined the street in pairs, following up the hellish road to its end.

The drifter stepped forward, his eyes taking in the scene around him. The red signal would never be enough to let Ghost know what kind of situation Nipton was in. She'd find out though, if that Powder Ganger ended up back there.

"Don't worry; I won't have you lashed to a cross like these degenerates. It's useful you happened by."

The courier looked behind the fire to see one of the men beyond stepping around it. Immediately he began moving backward, regardless of his reassurances. He'd already made it clear he was one of the ones responsible for this. The bull…

A white hot flash of knowledge exploded into him, stinging his scar and making his eyes lose focus. Caesar's Legion.

The man wore heavy boots and thick looking armour, with padded shoulders reinforced with metal extending out over his thin arms. The front of the armour had once been something else, but had since been reworked, with metal added and curved into extra plating. Strangely, below that he wore what at first looked like a ragged cloth skirt, but Six realised beneath that he wore thick leggings as well.

His head was inhuman at first, until Six realised that it was actually a hood fashioned from the head of a fox, its eyes staring blankly forward. Underneath that, he wore some kind of dark glasses.

Part of him wanted to laugh. The rest of him strongly reminded him that he may have been the only person in town who wasn't in league with this man and also wasn't a charred corpse, a headless corpse, a corpse hanging from a cross or a soon-to-be corpse hanging from a cross.

"I want you to witness the fate of Nipton, memorise every detail. And then, when you move on? I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar's Legion taught here, especially any NCR troops you run across," the man continued, his voice a strange, smooth sounding thing with the kind of edge that warned of terrible kinds of wisdom within the man's mind.

Interestingly, Six noted that this man used the Latin pronunciation of 'Caesar' – that is, 'kai-sar', instead of the commonly preferred soft 'c' in 'see-ser'.

"What kind of lessons are these?" the courier managed to stammer, the weight of death still crushing in on him from all sides. Now this man and his companions, not just members of some twisted raider gang but the second full-blown army that threatened the Mojave.

The fox-man shook his head. "Where to begin? That they are weak, and we are strong? This much was known already," he began, beginning to pace in front of the fire. "But the depths of their moral sickness, their dissolution? Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson."

"What did you…? I mean, what happened…? Why…?" was all the courier could manage in the face of this man, who so proudly declared what he'd done as justice.

"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself – the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores. For a pittance the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when I sprang it did they realise they were caught inside it too," he continued to explain.

Beginning to regain composure, Six managed a full sentence this time, looking over to this man's friends, who merely stood watching, dressed in the same armour as him, though with different headgear. One wore a strange face wrap with goggles and a mass of feathers in a kind of headdress. The others wore less, distinguishing that one as a ranking individual.

"You just captured the town? Like that? They can't have been this stupid. To deserve… this," he replied, wincing as he took a step forward on his bad leg.

The other man seemed to take note, his head tilting down slightly, and Six assumed behind the dark glasses that his eyes observed the falter in his leg.

"Yes," he said after a few moments, "and herded them into the centre of town. I told them their sins, the foremost being disloyalty. I told them that when Legionaries are disloyal, some are punished, the others made to watch. And I announced the lottery."

The Powder Ganger from before flickered through his mind. That was the winner; driven mad by this, so relieved to be alive he'd actually managed to skip into the wilderness of the post-apocalyptic Mojave giggling like a little girl.

"Each clutched his ticket, hoping it would set him free. Each did nothing, even when 'loved ones' were dragged away to be killed."

Something within the courier sparked at that. This man was vile, but if what he said was true… "Nothing?" he said quietly. For the barest instant someone was in his mind and he knew her, knew everything about his life. Then she was gone, and he was Courier Six again, but ever so slightly more bitter for the moment. "Disgusting. But surely some of these people were innocent," he spat.

That seemed to just make the man more amused. "Innocent? Hardly. Cowardly, though. They outnumbered us, yet not once did they try to resist," he replied, almost thoughtfully, as though he couldn't understand it.

The courier didn't believe him. "Someone must have stood up. One of them, at very least."

The fox shook his head. "They stood and watched as their fellows were butchered, crucified, and burned, one by one. They stood and hoped their turn would not come. Each cared only for himself," he insisted, clearly unhappy with this fact, his lips twisted in a scowl as he thought about it.

"Even if they were all cowards, this is… obscene. Wrong," he stated.

"As are all crimes," the fox said, giving something of a triumphant grin and then turning to walk away.

Six made to step after them and grunted as his leg refused the action.

The fox paused, and turned back to him, reaching into a pocket. He drew out a small bag, and tossed it towards the courier, who caught it in midair and turned it over in his hands. The opening was tightly bound by a cord.

"What's this supposed to be?" he wondered aloud.

The fox turned and began to walk away. "A simple remedy. It will sting for a moment, but rub it into your wounds, and the flesh will heal quicker," he explained.

Now he was suspicious. "Why help me? Especially after what you've done here?" he wondered.

The fox paused again, but did not turn around. "Because you were not one of them. I see it in you; you are not like them, either. You are better. A blade matches your hand better than ropes," he explained. "Now go, and teach them what you learned here. There will be more lessons in the days ahead."

Then the men were walking away into the night, vanishing from the bonfire's glow, tailed by a pack of mongrels that heeled to their keepers.

Clutching the bag of powder, Six was left standing there in the cold night air, his leg throbbing with discomfort and his mind still partially in shock.

Unable to bear it, he followed the fox's advice, kneeling down and rubbing the power into the wound. He hadn't lied, it did sting first, and Six gasped a moment at it, but almost immediately the sensation changed to soothing. He stood back up, and found the soothing had replaced the pain. He could walk properly again.

He exercised his ability, taking one of the flags stabbed into the earth and moving back to the town sign, standing some ways along the road from the gates. Stepping a little further forward, he found a good spot in the dirt, and thrust the flagstaff in, digging it into the ground and letting the bull face west, where Ghost would see it in the morning.

Moving back, he made his way into the town a second time, his electronic companion silently following him all the while. He selected the first house, as far away from the main street as he could be and at the opposite side of town to the Legionaries, and opened the door.

That night, though, sleep would not come easily. The morbidity of the ghost town he slept in waited just out the door, and he left ED-E online for the evening just to be sure.

More than that though, what kept him awake was the moment the fox had evoked. The single moment of transcending the man he was now, Courier Six, and knowing who he once was. No matter how hard he tried he could not bring her back to his mind again, though. He spent all night trying.

_~Clubs: The second of the four traditional playing card suits, encompassing the classical element of fire. In a tarot deck it is represented by the wand._


	8. Seventh Hand: Misdeal

__Agent 94: I can assure you, Ulysses was nowhere to be found in the sixth hand. But someone saved the Courier, of course.

I don't like to sound too fond of myself, but I have to say I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished so far, and what we've all yet to see in this rendition of New Vegas. Hope you'll all enjoy this hand like you have the others, and if you can spare a few words of feedback or simple praise or even criticism then please go right ahead.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Seventh Hand – Misdeal<strong>_

_Sometime late 2270_

The night was warm. Air blowing from the west carried flecks of warmth from the places where the sun still shone, and the clouds above kept the heat that so relentlessly beat against the stone and sand over the course of the day trapped upon terra-firma.

Lake Mead spread out, illuminated by the moon's vision down upon it, and reflecting it upwards to its tidal overseer.

The dust and hills of the Mojave stretched away west and south, and away east and north the shores of the lake washed debris up against the shore, or Lakelurks at worst. The place was serene, despite the dangers that could lurk out in the night.

We'd stopped for a rest on our way to meet some people somewhere north, I don't remember the name. Dad knew, and he seemed pretty interested in getting there, but when we found this camp ground early in the evening we'd decided to make it our camp site, despite how close it was to the water. It wasn't Lakelurk season anyway, so dad figured we could get away with it.

Cerberus and I had spent a great deal of time chasing a rat around the area, until the shaggy black dog had decided he'd had enough of playing with the thing and promptly closed his jaws around it. At which point I'd left him to his meal. Really didn't feel like seeing rat insides again.

Mum had been instructing dad on the finer points of cooking fire ant fricassee, to which he was adding grilled mantis tonight, and the two of them stood over the campfire watching the fruits of their labour mature for the inevitable feast ahead.

I sat on one of the old picnic tables that somehow still held up despite the years of misuse, though perhaps some kindly person who'd since been lost to the winds had come by one day with a toolbox and a will to make things better, and they'd fixed it up.

"I hope Adrian has something important to tell us," mum said, leaning down to examine the cooking.

Dad looked across the flames at her and smiled, scratching the grizzly looking beard he'd grown. "He said it was important, and that he wanted as many people as he could to come and discuss it. I can only assume it's important, but I trust him," he replied.

Mum leaned back up and stretched, raising her hands up to the sky. Typically her long brown hair fell back down between her shoulder blades in a tumble of curls, and her eyes matched. In the light of the fire her tan skin had gold just underneath it, and her sharp facial features didn't quite fit with the often soft mother's face I saw every day. As usual she wore the long, once white lab coat that she claimed was forever a reminder of her opinions and actions.

I don't remember it ever being white, but she said that in the tribe she came from they all wore them, or at least nearly all did. Since being with dad she'd dyed it grey to match his coat, and she always said there were other reasons too, such as to signify that she was a former member of that tribe, and no longer one of them.

Sometimes, when they weren't getting along, dad would say it was grey because it showed the difference between her tribe's ideals and her own, and not in a flattering manner. She never appreciated being told that, but she never wholeheartedly disagreed, instead she'd change the subject or simply walk away and cool down.

Tonight ended up being one of those nights.

It started with dad talking about the situation. I didn't understand it much at the time, but the words were still there.

"Arizona's changed," he began. "Used to be raider country, anyone heading that way would be hard pressed to walk one whole day without encountering two different gangs, sometimes at the same time. Nowadays there's just one big lot eating all the smaller gangs."

At first my mother was agreeing with dad. "It's a strange thing, for one tribe to accomplish that," she observed, using a pair of ancient surgical tongs to pick up one of the mantis legs from the grill they'd placed over the burning fire, turning it over.

"By all accounts it's all because of those men, too. Goes to show, give a smart man enough time, and in twenty years he'll build a nation. All he needs to do is step on a few toes to get there," dad mused, staring into the flames.

Mum looked away, across the lake, far off to the distant east. "I can't believe he could do that. 'Caesar' he calls himself now."

Dad – Damien – followed her gaze. "Any man can turn a title into their name," he said. "You of all people know that 'Caesar' isn't who he is though."

"It isn't who he _was_. But that was such a long time ago… men change. Nations change," she said.

Cerberus loped up beside me, and let his tongue hang out, taking in the cool night air. I brought an arm up and scratched the shaggy mongrel behind the ear. He always appreciated that.

"He doesn't like opposition. Anyone with a gun he doesn't have working for him is someone who'd better watch their back in Arizona. It's gone from complete anarchy to total rule," dad thought. "I don't think we're going to be going on any trips to the Grand Canyon."

"Totalitarian rule," mum corrected.

I didn't bother debating the idea of seeing the Grand Canyon. I'd given up on wanting to go years before. A big hole in the earth. Wow. Can't say the idea was massively interesting after the novelty of it wore off.

"Totalitarian then," dad agreed. "Can't believe you knew him. Small world, huh?"

"Used to be a lot bigger," my mother said absent-mindedly, and I tilted my head at the thought. She'd told me about it, showed me pictures in books. How America was this huge expanse of land, and underneath it attached by a smaller bit of land there was all this extra room. As if that wasn't bizarre enough there were even bigger expanses of land elsewhere.

A big red area that mum said wasn't really called 'Commie Country' sat east across the biggest lake there ever was. Or at least it was said to be. Maybe it was like California's lakes, and dry now so we could walk across and see Commie Country. But there was all this other land between them and us anyway, 'Africa' and 'Europe'.

It was all very confusing, and I didn't really care to think about it extensively. It was hard enough just keeping everywhere in Nevada in my mind sometimes. Then we'd sometimes go to somewhere like California or Utah, and it'd be strange other places too. I didn't even want to think about trying to learn all the geographical features and settlements of somewhere like Colorado as well.

"I'd say we're about ready to eat," dad said finally, pulling the food from the campfire's heat.

A few minutes later we were sitting down to dinner, using whatever we could (in my case, a cutting board) to sit grilled mantis and fricassee down ready for food. Cerberus gratefully accepted a considerable helping of my fricassee when I tried it and promptly decided to avoid anything to do with fire ants in the future. The crunch of grilled mantis was infinitely better to me. Really, so much better.

Not that Cerberus cared which was better. This was incredibly compared to raw rat, I'm sure.

My parents continued to talk about the men in Arizona and their huge tribe, and how they'd come to be. One of them was called 'Joshua Graham', and he was some kind of mystic who believed in things that had my mother scoffing and making comments about his level of intelligence.

Dad seemed to respect him though. "The man's hell on a battlefield from what I hear. Fights to the last bullet and then just beats anyone else with the back end of his gun. Stories about what he's pulled off already get people talking," he said enthusiastically. "They say he charged an entire barricaded building alone when he and Caesar took Flagstaff off whatever gang of the week was squatting there. Took 'em all out. By _himself_. If that doesn't warrant at least some respect, I don't know what does."

"Yet he'd claim nothing he did was special and it was all some deity's actions guiding his murdering hands," she said, not impressed.

Dad leaned back with a mouthful of dinner. "Prefer Caesar, do you?" he asked through it.

She shook her head, knowing full well that to answer that wrong would be to step right into the firing line. "I wouldn't say prefer. I appreciate what he's done more than I do his… what are they calling him now? 'Legate'?" she explained. "Whatever he did it for; Caesar's turned over forty tribes into one tribe, working together, for one goal. That's genuinely impressive."

"Now he says he's the son of a god, though. He's basically using tribal religion as a way of taking over. I'm sure you probably could have done the same thing if you'd found the right tribe to manipulate," dad parried, in something of a confusing response. Part of it seemed to be a compliment to my mother; he was saying she'd be capable of creating a society like this 'Caesar' had. The other part wasn't so nice.

"What do you mean?" was the demanded question, eyebrow raised in suspicion.

"Isn't it you who says 'knowledge is power'?" dad wondered.

"That can take on so many different meanings that the saying itself is meaningless. The intentions behind it are always different," mum countered.

Dad looked at her coat. Grey lab attire. Used to be white. "That's true. You and he would have very separate ways to influence the people, wouldn't you? Makes you look somewhat more like a Brotherhood member sometimes. Maybe scribe robes would suit you."

This was a point that the two seemed to discuss a lot. One of the reasons my mother was no longer a member of what was once her tribe. I'd heard of the Brotherhood extensively from people who lived or traveled west, and they didn't sound much like mum at all. Yet dad always seemed to think she'd belong. Maybe they were her original tribe.

Mum wasn't interested in debating it though. "I'm not going to argue about this. Especially not in front of my son."

_~ Gomorrah: It'll be our little secret ~_

_26th October 2281_

The dead town of Nipton was behind him, and in his hand were two pages of a journal that told him loud and clear why the town had been torn to pieces like it had. The town hall still remained home to some of the Legion's mongrels, who had attempted to savage him when he'd stepped beyond the still-burning bonfire into the dim light beyond the doors.

He'd put the beasts down, muttering things about the dog he knew he'd loved, but who he also knew with a great degree of sadness had already passed away. Whether by wasteland or by age, the dog couldn't have lived to this point in time, he'd been getting old by the time Six was fifteen. Hell, he'd already been well aged by the time he was fourteen, let alone fifteen.

Now he was twenty… four? Seven?

He laughed. Six. He was twenty and Six.

After searching through the town hall he'd found one or two things. A revolver, which he'd happily tucked away underneath his belt despite a lack of ammunition of the type. He was running out of space to carry things, and ED-E's extra compartment was all well and good, but when it floated off in battle to eat bullets and zap asses it didn't help him when he needed a reload, so the only ammunition he'd let the floating metal eyeball carry was any he salvaged out of houses or off corpses that he didn't have a use for. Shotgun ammo when someone had already taken the shotgun, for example.

Besides that he'd found a new book to add to his reading list. In addition to the Wasteland Survival Guide, which he kept meaning to flick through but had yet to get around to, he now had the curious 'Big Book of Science' to comprehend.

It lived up to its name, being a considerably sized tome of various equations, theories and other such babble that the drifter partially understood. When he'd crammed it into ED-E's storage compartment the sphere had whirred and buzzed in the robotic equivalent of a series of grunts and actually dropped a little lower towards the ground as it compensated the extra load. The hovering library had kept at it though, and Six couldn't help but smile and pat his companiorb affectionately, to which it responded in a series of binary that could have been either an appreciative response or a string of abuse. Either way it'd put up with the load, and that was enough for the courier.

About six hours on the road following that and the courier had felt curious the whole time. His hands remained at his guns at all time, remembering the Jackals all too well, and to his immense pleasure by morning the healing powder had closed the wound entirely, letting him walk unhindered down the road.

As he'd expected, the Legion soldiers had been long gone by morning, vanished off down whatever foxhole they'd sprung from to destroy the town with their work done and their statement proudly and viciously made.

He'd paused to read the Mayor's journal in the town hall, ripping the last two pages out in case he needed to elaborate on Nipton's situation beyond 'Legion burned it', though partially it was just to remind himself of what the town had been.

The two entries of Mayor Steyn's journal read thus:

_A promising development, if I do say so myself! It seems things went to hell at the NCR Correctional Facility north of here, and escaped prisoners are roaming free.  
>Sounds like a bad thing - and would be, if not for the political acumen and interpersonal alchemy of yours truly, Mayor Joseph B. Steyn, Esq. I sent the Jims out to make contact with the prisoners (or "Powder Gangers," rather - they insist on this name) to let them know Nipton's open for trade - with free turns with the girls as door prizes.<br>Ha! You know they went for that deal. As sold by Little Jim, anyway. Big Jim, R.I.P.  
>I see a lot of potential here so long as I can keep the NCR troops and Powders (ridiculous name) from running into each other and shooting it out in the streets. Luckily, the troopers only come at night (double entendre), so if the Powders will only come during the day (again), I'll have them coming (third time, the charm) and going.<br>Yours in confidence,  
>Mayor Joseph B. Steyn, Esq.<em>

Followed an undisclosed amount of time later by:

_I can hardly believe my luck. Literally. I'm agape.  
>Just now I was approached by a rather intense young man calling himself "Mr. Fox." (Yeah, right.) When we were alone in my office, he let it be known that he is a member of Caesar's Legion (!).<br>He knew that NCR troops and Powder Gangers often spend time in Nipton. It turns out that the Legion hates and wishes to make an example of both groups, the NCR for obvious reasons, and Powder Gangers for harassing Legion raiding parties on this side of the river.  
>I didn't have to think a moment about Mr. Fox's proposition before accepting it. All I have to do is convince the Powders to kidnap the NCR troops at night. When both groups are in town, the Legion boys will scoop everyone up. Ha!<br>For this simple task, I have been offered 8,000 CAPS! I could almost go back to the NCR right away... but who knows how much else I might make off this Legion lackey?  
>I'm going to start stockpiling some supplies in a safe house between here and the Mojave Outpost, just in case I decide to head back home in a hurry...<br>Very exciting!  
>Signed, with a steady hand,<br>(on the keyboard)  
>Super-Mayor Joseph B. Steyn, III Esq.<em>

The night prior, Mr. Fox as he'd called himself in the presence of the Mayor (Six had no doubt they were the same person) had called the place a town of whores that opened its gates – and legs – for any being that could walk through there and hand over money. Californian soldiers, convicts, or Caesar's men. Courier Six wondered without humour if that offer extended to mutants. Another aspect of life in the wasteland he didn't particularly feel the need to think about, but there it was, in his head, dancing a merry, disgusting jig.

He shook it out of his mind and continued walking through the midday heat, chewing through and apple as he walked. It was a good one – crunchy, delicious, juicy. The kind of food you wouldn't have believed possible in the wasteland just a decade or two ago, and entirely unheard of in darker places.

Once again his mind had turned to the Mojave. It was mysterious in many ways. From what his mind gave him, the place had survived the nukes like no other. The war that had scorched the skies and salted the earth with life-killing radiation had seemingly missed this stretch of desert and frontier settlements. Granted, it was still a desert, and hardly a populated or impressive place, but farms could be grown here when two hundred years after the end of the world some places would still produce hideous mutants instead of edible crops.

From what he understood, Vegas had been nearly completely spared. The great Las Vegas was still a shell of its former glory, but the fire and destruction that had seen it degenerate was the product of conflict and anarchy following the Great War, not during it.

People had a saying for why things had gone this way, but Six had since unlearned it, and he'd probably need to reach Vegas to put that back in place.

As his mind had contemplated these odd things, he'd finally found himself at a bend in the road, veering left to the north where, according to his Pip-Boy, the road to Novac waited, an offshoot of the highway he was on now.

Rock walls stretched high either side, and immediately he'd known he was walking into another danger zone. His hands were still at his guns, and he'd drawn them both, holding them ready and just waiting for the first highwayman, Powder Ganger, or Jackal to step out from behind a rock and demand tribute, whether in money or blood.

He hadn't even feigned surprise when a young woman stepped out from behind a rock, a slithering 's' shape tattooed on her cheek, holding a knife carved out of bone, making a hissing sound.

He'd just put a bullet straight in her head and started running.

Sure enough, gunfire soon followed as the other raiders realised their little toll booth was compromised, with at least four of them appearing over the rocks above him. He'd woven his way along the road, spinning occasionally to deliver gunfire up at them, but he was armed with pistols and them rifles, so he was at a severe disadvantage from the start.

The only reason he'd survived the onslaught was thanks to the outright surprise each of the raiders had experienced when this one man and his flying tin can companion had blown their colleagues brains out without so much as opening his mouth to protest to try and bargain.

Most assuredly, something had changed within Courier Six the evening he spoke with the fox-headed man. A piece of his past he didn't realise he desperately missed had appeared, and made him aware of a hole in his heart he sorely wished to fill once more.

It had reminded him of less enjoyable moments in time he'd experienced, and his dream had allowed him to relive a tension that had become as much a companion as ED-E was now in years gone by. He'd focused harder on his mission. The Great Khans. The man in the checkered suit. The Platinum Chip.

Now, as the sun began to once again remove itself from the Mojave and depart for shores that few alive still comprehended the existence of, Six spotted a wind pump peeking over a hill to his east. Generally such a thing was the sign of a farm, and in the late afternoon/early dusk any place to sleep out of the elements was a good place to sleep in his opinion.

Making his way up the hillside, he'd come across more than just a single wind pump sitting on a hillside, and exactly what he'd hoped to find; a building.

A simple thing made of corrugated iron carefully welded together in places and nailed onto a wooden frame on the inside to keep it steady.

Beyond that, though, the area was a sizeable locale compared to many other areas he'd thus far encountered. The steep hills ran around the west and north sides like a natural wall, hiding the area from the highway as it curved around and split into a junction that made friends with the road north to Novac before continuing along to somewhere else.

Along the western hills a series of three bridges linked over dips in the terrain, removing the need to oscillate across the terrain. At the south end of this series of bridges was something of a viewer's platform, looking back along the way Six had come, out towards Nipton, while two bridges north of the wind pump he stood beside ended in a hill that, from a distance, seemed fairly uninteresting.

Down the slope, beyond the shack was a collection of crops, mostly corn by the looks of it, though a few white horse nettle stems stood out amongst them. To the right of that was a well which he presumed the plants drew water from, and further right he noted as he came around the side of the shack were water troughs converted into plant beds where various kinds of greenery grew.

At the edge of the property a fence of collectively piled metal, plastic, wood, and canvas was jumbled together to wall off the east, leaving only one natural entrance to the ranch to the northeast, out onto the highway. Extending from the fence was an empty pen that might once have housed cattle, but was now just another empty feature of the area.

At the eastern end of the ranch was a broken radio tower, with its upper half lying in the dirt beside it like half a skeleton severed at the base of the spine, leaving its legs standing while its torso and head gathered dust on the ground.

Six approached the door and gave a few knocks, then stood back waiting for a reply.

No such thing arrived. ED-E hovered beside him, buzzing quietly.

After a few moments, Six tried again, knocking a little harder. It was a small shack, anyone on the other side would probably have heard him walking around it let alone knocking. Still, caution was a virtue in the wastes.

"Hello?" he asked, sure anyone on the other side could hear him. "I'm looking for a place to rest my head for the night. I'm no raider, just a courier on his way to pick up a package who needs a place to rest while the night wears itself out."

Hopefully that sounded convincing enough. It was true, after all, and honesty could do a lot for selling your case.

A third series of knocks and still no answer. At this point politeness left him, and the drifter tested the door. Unlocked, it opened without resistance, giving him free passage into the darkness beyond.

Light filtered through gaps in the ceiling that had been covered with Old World transparent plastic, what little there was outside to come in, which confirmed the courier's suspicions that he'd been talking to nobody again.

To his left were two sets of lockers, one on top of the other, with one of them hanging slightly ajar, but empty. Another was missing its door, and sitting there, tempting him with a seductive glint, was a new razor.

At the far end was a shelf on which sat a rifle with a few boxes of ammunition in one corner, and an old bed frame complete with mattress in the other, covered in a patchwork blanket.

To his right was a table sitting beside a fridge. The Old World contraptions had been designed to chill food, but seldom was there ever any power running to them, so often they were just used as trademark locations to store edibles, and not good at all for actually chilling food. Sitting directly beside that was a similarly useless appliance, an oven, atop which sat a pot and a meat cleaver, neither of which the courier was especially interested in.

Stepping in, Six couldn't help but gravitate towards the razor, and after a glance around, he slipped it into his pocket and said no more on the matter. If anyone returned to the dwelling he'd use it and give it back. If not, well, it was his now, and whoever lived here shouldn't have left it readily available for him to snatch up.

Strolling down to the other end of the dwelling, Six sat down on the bed and sighed with delight as his body weight was no longer held up entirely by his legs. By no means was he large, life in environments like this tolerated no such thing, but walking all day always meant the moment he stopped and sat down was one that was always worth rejoicing over.

It was followed by a grunt of pain as his scar seared and roared with white-hot fury, dropping into his hand as he rubbed it futilely, hoping to set it right again.

"Shouldn't be here," he said aloud without quite understanding why. Something in him knew this place.

His scar continued to throb with pain, though he managed to subdue it somewhat. Standing up, he stumbled over to the door and stepped out into dusk, looking out over the farm and into the desert beyond.

Goddamn amnesia. Jumping at phantoms, asking more questions about his own mind and memory than he managed to think of for his situation in general. Sure, 'why'd the man in the checkered suit want the poker chip?' was a good question, but it was hard for it to entirely eclipse 'who the fuck am I?'

He didn't know if he was a cruel, merciless killer, some idealistic problem-solver, or anything that fell between the two. Was he a wandering tinker? Some kind of cowboy wannabe? A mercenary at heart, out for the money? Looking for treasure, fame, and legend? Running from his past? Running towards it?

But the answers weren't coming to him, so he turned and walked around the house, moving up to the viewing platform to gaze out at the last of the sunlight as it ran away again, cowardly fleeing over the horizon as night chased it. It would return, in the morning, with an army of light, and the whole business would repeat the next day, on and on until finally there was no more light to shine in the darkness of space.

A pair of binoculars sat on top of the chest-high wall of sandbags that made up the north, west and south sides of the platform in place of any kind of railing, and a roof of corrugated iron sat above him, stood up by two pillars of wood either side.

Looking through the magnifying tools, he looked out over the dust and sands to see Nipton, still burning away for another evening.

It occurred to him that anyone who had been here would have been able to see him coming nearly all day until the road slipped into the small canyon between the two rock-walls.

Might the Great Khans and their fancy friend have stayed here and spotted a lone figure trailing them? But that wouldn't explain what happened to the owner of this place. Unless they dug graves for everyone in their way. From his experience, that wasn't how Khans rolled though. Snake-eyes, though, he was a different story entirely, one Six couldn't say he knew.

Perhaps it was worth investigating this place further then, seeing what else he could locate. Clues, perchance?

He wandered across the first bridge to stand under the wind pump again, and briefly wondered if those raiders might have attempted to follow him and would follow the road along to find him trying to get a good night's rest just to have them take revenge.

ED-E wouldn't be sleeping tonight.

If his forehead was going to sting like that while he was in that shack neither would he though, much to his immense displeasure.

He paced over the second bridge, stepping onto another tall hill.

Novac was almost straight north from here. Where would they be going? Red Rock Canyon, a primary Khan camp, _the _primary Khan camp was several days north of Goodsprings. This long way around was weeks. Surely they'd willingly risk something like Cazadores in the name of getting home far quicker?

Again, the wild card flipped onto the table, the checkered suit of a Joker hidden in the deck. But by now Six could make a reasonable guess at a suit like that returning to the home of all suits: New Vegas proper.

Maybe that was it, the Khans were hired muscle. No, the Khans didn't do bodyguard jobs did they?

Then again, it'd been years since he left, and they were an adaptive bunch while he was with them…

He could hear music as he crossed the last bridge, and the feature of the final hill came into view, sitting behind a rock.

A grave. _The Grave._

He just about tripped over nothing as he saw it.

A fire pit of cinder blocks sat near it, and perched on a rock at the foot of the burial mound was a radio whose batteries had yet to die.

A song was just reaching its end, a song about lovers with lyrics pleading to always be together. Six tilted his head back to the sky and silently mouthed the last few words.

"Love me; don't ever let me go…"

She was back again, a shapeless phantom standing beside him who would vanish as soon as he turned to look at her. A being whose companionship was everything, yet reminiscent always of a pain he could not conquer.

"Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. New Vegas. Thank you very very much for listening," came the familiar voice of the DJ. "Got a couple of news stories coming up for you."

The quiet air was so strange here. No different than anywhere else in the Mojave, yet somehow it was just… _different_. Maybe this was… 'home'?

No. He'd know 'home' if he found it. This wasn't it.

He wanted so much to simply twist his head to the right, to see if he could catch a glimpse of this vision his subconscious conjured, but he knew that no such ghost stood beside him. The drifter was alone here, to all eyes. To his mind though, just while he stayed as he was, he had a companion.

If he spoke, would she listen?

"Who are you?" his dry mouth produced.

Of course no answer came. Instead, Mr. New Vegas continued his broadcast.

"The death toll continues to climb around Camp Forlorn Hope, where Legion raiding parties are still chipping away at the NCR's hold south of the Dam."

Something else appeared in Six's mind at the shred of news. The war taking place in the Mojave. The New California Republic fighting against Caesar's Legion, known to many for the animals upon their flag: the bear and the bull.

Two hundred years ago the human race had nearly extinguished itself in atomic war the likes of which every sane being in the world hoped would never be repeated. Two hundred years, and since then war had only paused. Now two nations, each built on their own kind of warfare, were at odds over this patch of territory.

They'd gladly kill each other for it, and label themselves the just party. Claim they were doing the Mojave a favour by cleansing it.

Courier Six sighed and looked down at the grave, immeasurable longing for the absent silhouette beside him to do something or say something.

"Where are you, then?" he pressed, hoping his mind would feel charitable.

Again, it was Mr. New Vegas who answered instead of her.

"A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness, and made a full recovery. Now _that _is a delivery service you can rely on," he announced.

How about that? He was deemed newsworthy. Not bad for a dead courier.

ED-E's static hummed beside him, reminding him that he wasn't truly alone, yet somehow the reminder only served to make him feel a little lonelier inside. Because the little metal orb was here, and she wasn't.

He knelt down beside the grave. Sitting on top if it was a book, ruined by the years, or perhaps something more recent, its cover faded into obscurity some time ago, and the contents hiding within the pages unable to be pried open for fear that they turn to dust; better to let them live on, untouched, than to watch them die.

Sitting atop that was an old harmonica, flicks of red and blue on it, and an engraved pattern, a flowing, nondescript series of waves and lines curling and curving around the metal surface, occasionally vanishing into a blight of rust.

"What did I do to deserve this?"

Had some sin sealed his fate and doomed him to this amnesiac fate? Had a transgression within his past led to this ultimate of new beginnings?

All he could do now was press forward, go after the chip, find out why it was important and hope that when it was finally back in his hand he'd again possess the memories he once had.

A logical side of him arose to antagonise, and though he hated to, he couldn't disagree that it made little sense for simple possession of the chip to recall his memories. After all, holding onto a pretty poker chip wouldn't simply un-headshot him. He might learn why this had happened, but the dreams were all he had to return his mind to its former state, and they might never return everything.

He could spend years waiting to know his own name. He could wait longer to know where Cerberus lay, only to have spent two years knowing he'd promised to pay his respects every year to a once-faithful companion.

The thought of that great black dog awoke another sorrow in him, and there, kneeling before a grave that could have been his mother just as much as it could have been the rancher's favourite Bighorner, he found himself quietly weeping.

A pathetic thing, crying for his lost memory, but beyond that were the amorphous ideas that he'd lost. The things he'd loved that he might never again fully comprehend. A woman. A dog. Both companions he missed dearly.

Through his blurred vision he saw it, and was surprised he hadn't noticed it before. Standing up, he stepped over to where it stood proudly, thrust into the earth behind the head of the grave.

A machete, its blade thick and strong, well maintained for some time but recently less cared for, waited for him.

It could have belonged to any man, or been meant for nobody to take. It could have been stolen by raiders, drifters like himself, or simple wanderers who needed the extra blade, but as Six looked at it he knew this was a weapon for he and he alone.

The handle was rough wood, extending just slightly at the base with a hole slipped through to make its base a ring.

What made it his though was the extra feature, much more recent, carved into both sides of the top of the handle. '6'

He gripped it, and slid the rest of the blade up out of the dirt. It was a large machete, its blade a little less than the length of his arm, broader at the end. An effective chopper.

Looking it up and down, he felt no discomfort holding it. He'd wielded it before, used it for this and for that. To help navigate terrain and obstacles. To cut down the living.

He'd wield it again. For all those things.

Sighing, he held it up to the newly risen moon, a thin crescent marking its new birth.

"When will it end?" he wondered, a question asked about so many things at once he couldn't keep track of them all.

His scar stung, and his mind began to blur, incapable of holding all of his thoughts together. Shouldn't he want to know his past? Why did his own mind refuse to provide answers?

He'd been undone, whoever he was before. Everything he'd done, everyone he'd met, it was all foreign to him now. The courier who carried the chip was dead, and in his body was Courier Six. Courier Six, who just wanted knowledge he couldn't have.

_~Misdeal: Refers to a situation in which a dealt hand is in some way ruined, for example by having too many or too few cards, and must therefore be reshuffled and then dealt again._


	9. Eighth Hand: Small Blind

__Not a lot to say about this one. It gets into one of the Courier's personality flaws and begins to show some of the whackier elements of the world. Just because the apocalypse happened, it clearly doesn't mean everyone has to keep a straight face about it.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eighth Hand – Small Blind<strong>_

_29th October, 2281_

Novac was a nice enough town, if it could have been called that. Really, it was just the remains of a Pre-War motel with an interesting landmark that people had come to squat around, though a few houses still stood a short way down the road. Even the name, 'Novac', was just a product of an old 'No Vacancy' sign missing its remaining letters.

'Dinky the Dinosaur' was the town's primary claim to fame, an enormous statue of what Six understood was a 'tee wrecks', its grinning mouth just above the huge thermometer (the second largest in the world, maybe the largest, given how long ago the claim was made) that it clutched in stumpy little arms.

He'd finally made it into town late the night before, finding himself directed towards the motel and talking to the motel's 'owner' about a room. She seemed nice enough, offering him a room that he'd gladly taken and collapsed into. ED-E, ever his companion, had simply bobbed along with him, hissing static every now and then. It'd been allowed to power down then, given the far reduced chances of danger in sleeping at a motel.

Courier Six had stretched and rolled over at first light, happily ignoring the instinct to get moving as soon as the sun once again shone, and a rare occurrence had taken place: the drifter slept in. No dreams accosted him, just blissful slumber and quiet rest.

As the day dragged on he finally rose, yawning, and stepped out into the sun. Observing his surroundings in the light, he came to grips with Novac.

Standing like a wall was the motel, a building with two floors stretching out from east to west. Behind it was a small concrete area, probably once a parking lot, to the east of which was the road that ran from north to south, or in Six's case the opposite direction. Down the road there were a few houses with rotted wooden fences and scarred walls, and on the other side of the street there was an old service station that had been repurposed into a workshop filled with supplies; duct tape, glue, scraps of metal and electronics, a pilot light here, a few wrenches there, and so forth.

Then of course was Dinky himself, standing tall opposite the motel courtyard, his toothy grin beaming at all those coming down the highway from the north, and from what the motel's owner – named Jeannie May Crawford – had said the tee wrecks' mouth served as a sniper's nest for the town's guardians, a pair of former military snipers who watched the road and took out any trouble seen coming their way.

He'd asked about his quarry, of course, and been directed to one of the snipers who apparently knew them. He took the day shift, so as the light baked the Dino Dee-Lite Motel courtyard Six made his way across to the door nestled just behind Dinky's leg.

On the way an old man, wearing a collection of cloth, approached him, glaring. His white hair and impressive beard was scraggly and unkempt. Not understanding what caused the man's anger, the drifter paused.

"Is there a problem, sir?" he wondered.

The old man paused and then reached for a knife at his waist. "Who sent you?" he demanded. "I ain't talking. They tried to get me to talk before, but I didn't say nothing. And I don't aim to now, by gum!"

Stunned, the courier threw up his hands and took a few steps back. "Woah, woah! Easy there, I'm no hitman!"

The old man relaxed, but only slightly, continuing to glare at him. "We'll just see about that. You come any closer and I'm liable to stick you with my stickin' knife," he warned. "Ol' Sticky's feelin' mighty ornery this day."

It occurred to Courier Six that this must have been the mad old man the motel owner warned him about, 'No-Bark Noonan'. Not a name any sane person would wield, that's for sure. He took another step back. "How about we just chat from back here then?" he asked.

No-Bark tilted his ear toward him. "You sure now? It's kinda hard to hear you," he replied.

"Better than getting jabbed," Six snarked back.

"Okay, okay. Just speak up a little," No-Bark allowed, oh-so mercifully. "But not so much that They hear you. They got people everywhere, always listening."

Pausing for a moment to consider what the madman said, Six agreed that he shouldn't talk too loud, lest They hear. He started up towards the dinosaur again. "Anything fun happening around town these days, Mr. Noonan?"

The old man jumped at the opportunity, and Six regretted it almost instantly. "Folks'll tell you that they seen ghouls up near the rockets factory! Sensationalist hooey, cooked up by superstitious yokels seeing phantoms of their own imagining!"

Mildly intrigued but still hopping to be rid of the nutter, Six allowed himself to press. "So what's really up there?"

Now he'd opened Pandora's Box. "Ghosts. Commie ghosts what don't know they're dead! Hoping to steal our rockets so they can fly up and paint the moon pink and draw a Lenin face on it. I seen one of them disappear and reappear before my very eyes! Although being a scientist, I have to admit I might've just blinked for longer than usual, what with the shock of seeing a commie ghost and so forth."

And with that, Six was at the door and happily ignoring No-Bark.

Pushing it in, he found himself in what had once been the gift shop. Now it was essentially the same thing, but more suited to modern day life; selling weaponry, utility items, and food alongside the simple gifts that traders could take to Vegas, or back down to California.

Standing on the other side of the counter was the shop's owner, who the courier had been informed was called Cliff Briscoe. An aging man, long balding, with lightly tanned skin and dulled brown eyes. He wore a grey shirt that breathed in the hot Mojave weather and blue jeans, something that in the Old World must have looked very normal. To Six, it simply looked odd. Barely a hint of armour.

Then again, he noted, he didn't wear much in the way of bullet-stopping equipment either. Maybe he'd change that.

"Welcome to the Dino Bite Gift Shop. My name's Cliff. If you're here for the tee wrecks figurines you're just in time. There's still a few left," the shopkeep announced as Six strode forward.

"Thanks, but I'm more looking for weapons and armour," the courier replied with a smile.

"Guns? I, uh, well… yeah, I guess I might have a few," Briscoe stuttered. "Darn it. No one ever buys the tee wreckses."

He opened a small supply closet, in which Six saw he kept not only his weaponry but an enormous array of miniature Dinky's and model rockets, probably items the real gift shop had once stocked. In addition there were a number of rifles, shotguns and handguns stacked and leaned against metal boxes, atop which sat boxes of ammunition.

No armour, but new weaponry was a plus, and he'd acquired a few pieces of junk and plenty of bottle caps on the road.

"See for yourself," Cliff said, gesturing to the stockpile. The courier let his eyes sweep over the rifles, until something else drew his eye. He stepped closer to it, and familiarity bled into him.

That gun belonged to his father. It belonged to him. It had been stolen amongst other things that night at Goodsprings. It was _his._

"How much for that gun?" he asked, pointing to it.

"Ah, that one. Nice looking thing, ain't it? Group of travellers came through a little while ago with it, said they didn't like it, so they sold it on to me. Well, I'm not one to argue with a good thing, and that looks like a pretty unique little pistol," he explained.

"It's mine. The men who sold it to you robbed me over a delivery I was making, took most of my stuff, that included. How much for you to give me my father's gun?" the drifter pressed, turning and looking at the balding man.

Cliff looked at him for a few moments, surprised by the force with which Six spoke. "Well if it's that important, I'm sure we can work something out," he said eventually.

A few minutes of bargaining later, and Six was taking in the feel and shape of a gun he'd become so very familiar with in the years leading up to his death. It had an angled wooden handle that flowed into the cylinder. Reaching over the top was what looked like a barrel, underneath which was the weapon's real barrel. Underneath that, held in place by what looked like a small square of rubber, was a laser sight with a small switch accessible via a hole in the rubber.

Flicking the cylinder out, Six noted that it had a spring ejector, meaning it would spit each of the five spent shells out as soon as he flicked it out after use. Made it quicker to reload. Reaching into his pockets, he instinctively knew that the rounds he had there went with this revolver, and in moments he'd married five to the chamber and clicked it back in. The weapon fired rifle shells. No doubt it'd pack a hell of a punch.

Bidding thanks to Cliff, he turned and made his way up the staircase at the back of the gift shop, opening the door to find himself standing in the tee wrecks' mouth behind a man wearing a black vest over a long sleeved red jacket. On his head was perched a red beret.

"What's going on, man?" Manny asked, tilting his head back without looking at him.

"I was told to come to you. I'm looking for someone. A man in a checkered suit. I'm told you know him," Six replied, cutting straight to the chase.

Manny nodded. "Sure, I know him. What do you want with him?"

"There's something I'd like to get from him," the drifter said with a faraway look.

"Oh yeah? Well listen, I can definitely help you find him, but I've got problems of my own. Maybe we can do a trade. You need my help, there's something I need too," Manny offered, turning back towards him. The man had a thin black moustache and a tall jaw, with hints of Asiatic features in his face.

"Alright, what do you need?" Six asked after a moment's thought. Surely it wouldn't be too much.

"Novac, it's home for me now. I want that to be for good. I like it here, and I've left too many homes behind. But the only resource we have here is junk. Without that, people wouldn't have anything to trade. They'd all have to leave," he explained. "We get most of it from the old rocket test site. But a bunch of ghouls showed up one day and took it over. We can't get in there now."

Six nodded, seeing where this was going. "Pretty sure I know what you need then," he agreed.

The sniper nodded as well. "They gotta go, or this'll be a ghost town before long. Doesn't matter to me what you do. As long as the ghouls are out of there, that's good enough for me," Manny briefed.

"I think I can do that. The site's along the western road, correct?"

"Yeah. It'd mean a lot to me," he replied.

Stepped back down and passing through the store once again, Six sighed. This was going to slow him down. According to his Pip-Boy map, it was a short way up the road, but the task itself could take some time.

Regardless, he wasn't just going to get the information, and Novac seemed a decent town. Letting it stutter and die didn't seem the right thing to do at all.

Here he was, the mighty courier, solving the problems of the smallfolk. Passing by the motel, he found the road and turned west, making his way up towards a gap in the rocky cliffs that reached west, eventually becoming Black Mountain.

He clicked on his radio as he walked, and after a few minutes on the road there was a click from his enormous wristwatch and a small burst of static. At the same time, ED-E blasted its cowboy fanfare and the drifter was distracted from what the sounds meant by a guttural growling up the road behind the ruined corpse of a car.

Covered in tattered rags emerged the first ghoul he'd seen since dying, and this one was clearly feral. Ghouls were formerly humans who, after extended exposure to radiation, had experienced an effect other than the usually expected death. Their body degenerated, their hair fell out, but often these would be largely aesthetic. They would cease to age physically, though over time their body might continue to degenerate. Their brains often remained whole, as did many of their internal organs, and this meant that some ghouls could be incredibly long-lived, some of them had even lived through the Great War and been ghoulified in the ensuing radiation, managing to survive the two-hundred long years that eventually led to today, and some would continue to live well into the future, once the lifespan of normal humans ran out.

The other kind of ghouls were far less interesting to be around; their degeneration had extended into their mind and brain, knocking them down to sub-human levels and leaving them with little beyond an all-consuming hunger for flesh – essentially they became the 'zombies' of Pre-War horror films.

This one, as it stepped out from behind the ruined vehicle, was missing an eye, its skin taught around its skull, thin arms ending in thin, brittle claws. It roared, making a hideous sound, and charged at him.

Holding one arm up to stop ED-E simply blasting it back, Six drew his new/old weapon and took aim. He didn't remember when the laser sight had been added, but it certainly made aiming all the easier, compensating for the irritation of the raised sight.

It was an extension of him already, and it took no more than a moment for him to line the gun up and fire. The ghoul's already brittle head didn't take the bullet well; it smashed through its skull and ripped out the back, splattering gore all over the car.

"Still got it," the courier muttered, walking on and examining his Pip-Boy.

The small beep and static burst had been the sound of him picking up the signal of another radio station.

Deciding to see what this new station held for him, he switched on to 'Black Mountain Radio'.

A song was playing currently, about a ranger who rolled into a town and did battle with a feared outlaw, coming out on top. Six liked it, so he kept down the road with it playing from his wrist.

As he went, he noticed another billboard situated on a small rocky outcropping declaring that the REPCONN Aerospace Museum was just up ahead, and happily welcomed visitors.

Beyond that was a road leading up to a toll station that had been fortified sometime over the years with scraps of metal, leading under a bridge and around a natural corner in the rock walls.

More of the feral ghouls prowled the area around the station, and Six let ED-E open fire on the hideous creatures as he moved forward. Keeping his gun ready, he blasted one through the rib cage as it moved close, leaving it gasping for air on the ground and still trying to snarl.

"May this curb your hunger," Six offered, stomping through the weak tissue and bones of its head with his boot. Unpleasant, but it ended the creature.

Beyond the bridge, piled up in a wall was a stack of vehicle husks used to create a fortress of sorts. Nearby were a few large piles of ash arranged in vaguely human shapes.

A battle had clearly occurred here, and it only became more obvious when he stepped around the car fort and found a collection of ammunition boxes and some bedding. It was a defending post for whoever had once been here. Maybe they still were.

There was still plenty of daylight, and Six didn't like the idea of sleeping in this place at all, so he kept moving, pacing around the bend in the wall to find himself looking down on the REPCONN Test Site.

The building itself was rather impressive; jutting forward out of the rock basin the place seemed to be in. In the middle of a plaza set down into the ground in front of the building was a large rocket statue pointed straight at an enormous silo to the area's south.

The place was quite imposing at first glance, and as he looked down the road Six could see more ghouls prowling the grounds.

Moving down the road slowly, he kept his eyes open for any signs of the feral creatures charging. Once he fired one shot he'd have to keep his head about them, because they'd all come running. The machete across his back might come in handy then. Another weapon he knew how to use instinctively, though the memory about it proved difficult to force out, even after he woke up on the hillside beside that grave.

Quickly he pushed that out of his mind; it made his scar hurt tremendously, which always affected his vision. Not wanted at a time like this.

The courier jumped as a burst of static exploded from ED-E and it zipped off down into one of the rocky valleys down the road with its laser already blasting bolts.

"Hey!" Courier Six called after the metal sphere, but between himself and the small cacophony the machine was making he'd already alerted the local population.

A snarl rose from behind a rock as he descended towards the plaza down a sloping road, and Six realised his radio was still on. As the ghoul charged him, he blew its head off with his father's gun and didn't bother to turn it off. The Gunshot would have them all moving this way now.

Another song ended as more snarls rose up and he slipped the gun into his off-hand so that the stronger – his right, like most others – could wield his machete. Following it, whoever was broadcasting launched straight into what the courier might have tentatively labelled a news segment.

"Welcome, Utobitha, to another episode of 'Know Your Mutants'! Today, we're proud to have best friend Tabitha with us! Welcome to the show!" came a thick, grating and vaguely feminine voice from his Pip-Boy. 'Utobitha'?

A snarl kept him on his toes as the first ghoul started charging from up the road where he had come, pieces of flesh, hanging from its mouth. It'd gotten so hungry that Six could see where it'd started eating its own arm.

"Good to be here, Rhonda, you look good," Tabitha replied, a similarly thick and harsh voice, considerably deeper than Rhonda's, though with a similar distantly feminine tone.

The machete slashed across its face, sending the brittle corpse into a heap on the ground that wouldn't be getting back up, and Six spun, staring down the next one's single eye as it stumbled towards him.

"So what type of mutant did you want to talk about this time, Best Friend Tabitha?" Rhonda asked as Six noted another ghoul clambering out of the model rocket to hurtle towards him. Two more were running down the building steps to join the fray.

"I thought I'd briefly talk about first-generation Super Mutants, Rhonda," Tabitha replied seriously as Six tore the neck of one ghoul open with another bullet from his gun, before moving towards the stumbler and opening its throat with the machete.

"Ooh, what can you tell us about them?" Rhonda asked excitedly, seemingly eager to learn something new about the first generation.

The drifter spun to bat another of the snarling sub-humans in the side of the face, sending a collection of its last teeth scattering across the destroyed asphalt. The one behind it made to lunge, and he thrust his machete forward, turning to fire at and miss another one following him down the road.

The ghoul he'd impaled through the heart let out a sigh and went limp immediately, but Six paused for a stunned moment; it sounded like it had breathed 'thank you' upon its death. After all, all these things had once been human.

As he breathed, the radio broadcast continued to play from his arm, filling him in on an aspect of life in the wasteland he vaguely understood.

"What we call the first generation of super mutants, Rhonda, were actually created by The Master himself! Like everything The Master took a direct hand in, they were better than the ones who came later, the ones made by accident," Tabitha explained, informing the population of the legacy of a long-dead… being. The legends of the long dead mythical being known as The Master were all different, and few pleasant. "They were smarter, almost as smart as Nightkin, and were able to think and act for themselves! However, the first generation seems to have some kind of suicidal urge that they can't control!"

Kicking the corpse back off his blade, the courier returned to the world and turned to look around him again. Three more ghouls were closing in as his mind slowly ticked over the surprisingly helpful information ticking from his wrist radio. 'Super mutants' were a species of neo-humans born thanks to a form of evolution virus. It made them bigger and stronger, immune to radiation, but there had been imperfections and other failures to make up for it. Something had been wrong with the formula that this 'Master' had discovered and attempted to use, and ultimately his plan to forcefully evolve the entire human race had failed at the hands of another, greater legend.

The present returned with the sound of a gunshot and the drifter made a mental note; one bullet left before he needed to reload.

Another howl came from behind him, this one from a ghoul that had thrown itself over the rock face in a mad attempt to catch him before its brethren. He dashed at one that was making its way up the slope, cleaving the top of its head off in a show of gore, and saw the screaming beast slam into the dirt with plenty enough force to end it.

"How terrible!" Rhonda said after a few moments silence, reacting to Tabitha's comment about suicidal mutants. "What makes you say that, Best Friend Tabitha?"

The last of the ghouls was charging toward him, gaunt face with empty eyes, both of them for this lucky creature, set upon him. The last bullet flew straight into its open mouth, ripping out the back of its head and neck, presumably around the brain stem, if it still had one, and Six silently praised whoever it was that had added the laser sight – whether his father or the old Courier Six, it had been a fantastic success.

"So far, all first generation super mutants that have come to Utobitha have left not soon after!" Tabitha said incredulously. Tabitha. Utobitha. Now that Six had time to think his mind immediately made the connection. Tabitha and Utopia in one inelegant mishmash word.

"How strange!" Rhonda replied, with the same level of disbelief. "Why would _anyone _leave the safety and comfort that Utobitha provides?"

Six chuckled. "I can think of a few reasons," he said to nobody, approaching the model ship in the REPCONN plaza.

"Why indeed, Rhonda! But now there's not a single first generation super mutant in Utobitha!" Tabitha went on. Oh no! How could it be!

Rhonda added something. "Except Neil!"

Tabitha and Neil. Not exactly monstrous and threatening names for the neo-humans. 'Best Friend' Tabitha seemed to take offence at the statement.

"EXCEPT NEIL!" she (?) roared in something somewhat like agreement.

ED-E appeared by his side again, a small hiss of static and a few chimes to explain its absence.

"Well!" Rhonda replied in surprise. "I think we learned something today! Let's go to the music…"

The bizarre broadcast was replaced with another song, and Six continued wandering up towards the front doors of the sizeable Pre-War building. A great many of the large industrial structures still stood, but were frail and would collapse if those crawling through them weren't careful. This one looked surprisingly solid, given how long it'd been since maintenance had last been carried out, but Six considered the secluded setting in which it sat, which likely shielded it from much of the harsh desert climate.

Creaking open the buildings door, he stepped forward into the darkness of the buildings, and immediately found himself standing in front of a service desk. Away to his left and right were doors, and behind the desk was another labelled as a bathroom.

Lying before the desk was another ghoul, clad in robes, a corpse even before he was dead. Face down in front of it was something much larger, with thick, solid muscles and a hood that looked like it'd been fashioned from a sack over its head. Wrapped around its arm was an old stop sign as some sort of shield and a hammer lying nearby, or at least that looked like its purpose. Three wires of rebar were wound together and wrapped in cloth at the base to serve as a handle, and as they went up they diverged and held a chunk of concrete, creating a mighty bludgeon. The creature's skin was a dark blue colour, and Six felt uneasy just looking at him.

On the wall was an old intercom, pale cream with a mesh over the speaker, through which someone began speaking as soon as he got into the room.

"Hey! Over here! Are you listening?" came a guttural tone, which Six recognised as a significantly more human form of ghoul noise.

A snarl from somewhere within the building told him the less human variety still roamed the halls in here too. Before he could reply the voice kept talking.

"Go to the big room on the east side of this building and take the metal staircase all the way up. And hurry."

Courier Six saluted, first in mock military, then with a single finger, and replied. "Aye, aye, _captain_."

"Get moving," was the similarly enthusiastic reply.

Least these ghouls could talk, he thought, taking solace in the fact.

ED-E began blasting bolts of energy, and Six began to wonder just how it managed to keep itself powered as it did, before taking aim as one ghoul ran across the balcony and pulling the trigger.

His weapon clicked uselessly, and he realised he hadn't reloaded. "Shit," he spat, moving across to the wall to the right of the entrance and flicking the chamber out. Promptly the five empty shells spat out to jingle on the ground, and he produced replacements, slotting them into place and clicking the chamber back into the weapon.

The door beside him burst open and two ghouls charged at him, snarling. One of them wore rags of tattered blue, once a jumpsuit that identified him as a denizen of a vault, the great shelters that preserved a pure strain of humanity. Whichever one he'd lived in once, it didn't matter now. The radiation had evaporated his mind and the horrors of the world his ancestors hid from had claimed him as one of their own.

In just moments Six tore the transformed vault dweller down, ending a once pure human being with a bullet. The other fell to the floating eyeball's laser fire.

There'd be more, of that Six was sure, so he moved through the door they'd opened and into the dim corridor beyond him. Clicking his Pip-Boy light on afforded him some more vision in the dim, and ED-E revealed another function by shining a light from somewhere within its inner machinations onto the ground before it.

He passed a frame from a disintegrated portrait, and heard the blast of a laser weapon from within the building. It wasn't ED-E, obviously, and it told him he wasn't the only thing in the building with enough competence to operate a firearm. That could be a good thing for a bad thing.

The dead blue thing at the entrance was a kind of creature he didn't remember, but it clearly had hands. Then again, so did feral ghouls. Didn't mean they could fire energy weapons. He wasn't even sure they'd understand how to use a knife unless it was just stabbed through their hand while they were clawing at something.

The energy fire continued for a few minutes as Six navigated the hallways, checking his Pip-Boy compass to make sure he kept to the east of the building, before it stopped.

Less ghouls snarled as he moved, and finally the courier emerged in what seemed to be a loading station; across an open space were several garage doors, lit up by light filtering through a huge array of windows on the east side of the building. The sun had long since passed over the point where it would shine through the grime proper, but the light of the afternoon was enough to give him clarity through the darkness.

On the west side of the room a metal staircase led up to a catwalk that ran over the loading bay and into an office of some sort, with metal protruding from the concrete walls to the west to encompass it like a strange growth on the side of a stone body.

Looking up through the metal floor, which had holes running along it for whatever reason, Six could see a small collection of ghoul bodies. He must have been on the right track he figured as he began his ascent.

Stepping over the singed bodies, he could see they were clearly the work of laser fire. Making his way along the catwalk, he stepped into the office and looked around, finding it less of an office and more of a hallway with a desk. Slipping around a corner, he found himself looking at one of the heavy metal doors most establishments had begun using to hide their heavier and more secretive locations before the war.

Running up the left and right of the door were what seemed like metal ribs, and at the centre was a wheel, with arrows turning clockwise above and below it denoting how to open it.

He moved his hands forward and gripped it, pushing clockwise as it instructed. It resisted, and he pushed harder, only managing to edge it forward very slightly. Locked. Damn.

"All right, smoothskin, I'm letting you in. You better watch yourself. I'll sure as hell be watching you."

The same voice as before and Six jumped as he spoke from another speaker protruding from the wall next to the courier he'd previously ignored.

There was a click from the door, and the drifter knew well enough what that meant. Putting his hand on the wheel again he found it much easier to turn it, watching as the ribs on either side of the door slid downwards with his turning, before the sides slid aside, disappearing almost entirely into the wall, leaving a single column of the door, which promptly vanished into the floor.

Marvelling at the Pre-War science that at times seemed to border on magic, Six stepped over the doorway and saw the lever that could be pulled to close it again where one of the door's 'ribs' had been previously, sticking out from the side of the doorway. He didn't need to close the door though, after ED-E bobbed in the centre column of the door slide back up, and was promptly locked back into place by either side moving in to grab it like a pair of metal hands clasping a windpipe. The wheel on this side of the door turned anti-clockwise by itself, and the ribs slipped back up into their locked position. A click from the door told him he wasn't leaving just yet.

"God, but you are ugly!" came the same guttural voice, and Six stopped marvelling at the magic door to look down the hallway. From the voice he'd expected a ghoul. What he got was a human with a comb-over in a lab coat. So we can't all get what we want out of every situation.

He scratched his moustache, stared at him a moment longer, and then kept talking. "Get upstairs and talk to Jason before I throw up just from looking at you."

Courier Six didn't know whether to be hurt or just confused. Mostly, so far, it was just confused, but a couple more insults about his appearance and the ratio might have shifted. He really needed a new razor.

Returning to the matter at hand, Six pulled a question out of his mind that didn't involve why the man was acting like a ghoul. "Where's this 'Jason' then?"

"Don't think about wasting his time," the man continued in that raspy, guttural drawl, pointing down a bend in the corridor beyond him. "He's very important. You should feel lucky to be granted some of his time."

Turning to walk down the hallway, he motioned for the courier to follow, and the man did so, still confused as to what was going on. "And you are?" he asked.

"Haversam. Chris," the man-ghoul growled.

"Nice to meet you Haversam Chris," the drifter replied with a grin. Chris grumbled something under his breath Six was sure wasn't flattering.

The man-ghoul lead him into a technical looking room with computers against the walls and several desks pushed together with a conglomeration of chemistry sets assembled together in one corner. Pacing about the room where ghouls – real ghouls – wearing the same kind of robes the corpse at the welcome desk had been wearing; red-brown that rose up their necks to hug the underside of their jaws.

Those that still had undersides for their jaw that was. Ghouls weren't well known for being the prettiest creatures in the world. While ferals were considerably more degenerated, the intelligent ghouls of the world still suffered from having their hair fall out and their skin peel off, usually resulting in exposed muscles and cracked parchment skin. He knew it would be rude to outwardly show his distaste for the sight, and he genuinely had no problem with ghouls in general, but it was hard not to look at them and think about how wrong it looked. After all, it was basically a human being frozen in time while they were dying a painful death of radiation sickness. Sure, they were immortal, but they were also… _wrong._ No offence to the ghouls themselves, it was just a nasty, unnatural process that had created them.

He stopped trying to justify himself to his own mind as Chris led him up a flight of stairs, past another robe wearing ghoul who Six was moderately sure was female, though there wasn't a lot beyond the obvious torso differences to go on.

He reached the top of the stairs and turned to see Jason, who wasn't all that hard to spot. For one, he was glowing green. Literally. "Hello wanderer," he offered, moving closer. His voice was strange, double-layered, echoing itself even as he spoke. It gave him something of a mystical quality.

Another ghoul who'd long since lost his hair, Jason wore a brown suit, Pre-War business casual, and paced towards Six in ancient and classy shoes. Beneath his skin, a remarkable amount of which remained, he literally glowed with green, and as he stepped close and offered his hand, the Pip-Boy at Six's wrist started to tick. Blinking, he stretched his hand forward to meet the ghoul's and shook it. His Pip-Boy kept ticking, and he realised it was the Geiger counter.

His eyes widened in sudden alarm and he took a step backwards, away from the glowing ghoul. The green light humming from beneath its skin was radiation!

Once the ticking stopped, the courier sighed and looked him up and down. Jason had clearly recognised what he was doing and stepped away again, from both he and Chris. "I apologise. I wished to shake your hand, and forgot the nature of my body," he explained.

The wanderer looked him up and down cautiously a second time, and Jason nodded in acknowledgement of his mistake. Changing the subject, he tried to pave over the indiscretion.

"Please forgive us of our humble surroundings. Our true home awaits us in the Far Beyond. Have you come to help us complete the Great Journey?" he asked with his mystic, echoing voice. A product of the radiation within him, Six assumed, and couldn't help but stare at the glow.

"Great… sorry, who exactly are you?" the courier finally managed.

Jason stood as tall as he could. "I am Jason Bright, the prophet of the Great Journey. All the ghouls you see here are members of my flock," he announced proudly. Or sternly. The double-layering in his voice made it hard to follow the tone so well.

"Bright. Right," the courier said, chuckling inside. He shook his head and decided to get to business. "Alright, I'm here because of the feral ghouls that have been wandering down the roads. The town, Novac, is starting to get worried. They're not exactly well defended, and a steadily increasing stream of ghouls isn't making them feel any safer."

Jason nodded, and then gestured for the two of them to walk together. They began to pace through the area, past the consoles and desks that had been set up, either before or during the aftermath. The drifter kept his distance, avoiding the sound of his Geiger counter ticking, which Jason respected by doing the same, keeping his radioactive glow a safe distance from his newfound friend.

"And they've been shooting them down like animals, haven't they?" Bright sighed.

Six looked across at him. "Can you blame them? Feral ghouls are hard to reason with, the town can't take chances," he pointed out.

Jason nodded, knowing he was correct. "Those ghouls were members of my flock, even after the madness consumed their minds. We never let them wander free; we kept them contained. The demons must have let them out, somehow…" he mused in disappointment. "Please, wanderer, bear in mind that every feral ghoul you spare now is one that we can save later. Once the way is clear, our feral brothers and sisters will accompany us on the Great Journey. If there are any left…"

He wouldn't have believed it if he'd told himself he'd feel bad about killing the ghouls in front of the building earlier today. Wouldn't have stopped it happening. Whatever the hell Jason was talking about, it sounded like he'd denied those ghouls a chance at being healed. Which, really, was a darned shame. Some of them might have been perfectly nice people once upon a time.

"You mentioned demons?" he asked, changing the subject.

Jason pushed open a door and stepped out onto a balcony in the shadow of the floors above it. The sun was beginning to sink, and soon it would slip beyond the rocky cliff faces around the REPCONN building, and eventually over the horizon altogether.

"The demons appeared from nowhere… except it might be more accurate to say they never actually 'appeared' at all," Jason explained in a way that only left Six further confused. "The demons are invisible. Where one of them stands, the most one sees is the air shimmering, like sunlight on water. They set upon us as we were on our way to worship one morning. We had just entered the basement."

"This is sounding rather surreal," the wanderer replied, following him out onto the balcony and looking over it view the plaza below, where he'd been fighting a short time ago.

"My flock fought bravely, and killed a few, but at such cost. Nearly half of us died or went missing. The rest of us retreated up here. One of the demons raved at us, but they have not tried to attack us since. Still, their presence brought all progress towards the Great Journey to a standstill," Bright continued, looking at the courier seriously.

Without speaking, the courier simply looked back, knowing that this glowing ghoul had more to say yet. Satisfied he was still listening, Jason went on.

"But now you have come. Once again, the creator has sent a human to help us across a seemingly insurmountable obstacle."

"Again? I take it you're referring to Chris? What's with him?" Six wondered, leaning back against the balcony and looking across at what seemed to have become a new employer. He was getting sidetracked, but Jason seemed to think once his job was complete the ghouls would be gone, and that was exactly what the sniper in Novac wanted. If he did this, he'd get his information, and then he'd be on the road again, tailing them. Hopefully he was closing in by now.

"Chris? We've tried to tell him he's human, had discussions with him about it since he first appeared, but no success. He believes he is one of us. Soon enough we realised that Chris was a gift from the creator. He is integral to the success of the Great Journey," the glowing ghoul said, revealing that the ghouls had played no tricks upon the man.

Finally, though, the courier could take no more mention without explanation. "You keep talking about this 'Great Journey'. I assume it's got to do with the 'Far Beyond' as well? I've never heard of a… faith like that," he said, stepping over the word 'cult' in favour of something more friendly.

The ghoul seemed to notice his hesitation, and knowingly nodded. "We wish to escape the barbarity of the wasteland, especially the violence and bigotry of its human inhabitants. The creator has promised to my flock a new land: a place of safety and healing… a paradise in the Far Beyond," he said, like some kind of sermon. "I have glimpsed it only in visions, wanderer, but what I have seen is truly miraculous. It is a place of light, and healing, and I know in my soul that my flock will be safe there."

Several words sprang to mind to describe the gospel of this radiation-producing lightbulb-corpse, (and that was some terrible bigotry right there, Six scolded himself) most of which involved the various problems with cults, but he had to admit, so far there was nothing in there about ritual sacrifice or worshipping atomic warheads, so it wasn't as bad as some wasteland religions.

A few minutes passed in silence as the two considerably different beings observed each other and the landscape around the test site. Finally, it was Jason Bright who broke the silence with a question.

"Will you drive away the demons, wanderer?"

Invisible monsters. Great. This didn't sound like a detour at all. Not one bit. He took a deep breath and looked at the glowing ghoul, leader of a flock of outcasts. His skin was peeling away; he glowed with the green light of radiation, fatal to humans. But despite that, his eyes would have passed for Six's own.

"I will try."

_~Small Blind: A bet made in some community card poker games in which a player must make a bet of approximately half the minimum wager before playing a hand to prevent participants from playing too conservatively._


	10. Ninth Hand: Orbit

Anon and jdboss: thanks for the enthusiasm, guys. I'm most assuredly going to continue writing, and you're going to continue getting to read it!

Bridgedweller: there isn't a lot of wiggle room with the first section of the game. Besides sending Courier Six up I15, I was always going to be following Highway 95 around. The further into the story we get, the more you'll see it altered and changed from what the game presents us, but keep in mind this is a retelling, not a rewrite. Stick around, you might decide you like it.

Here is the conclusion to the Jason Bright arc, and a chapter that was very fun to write. The Nightkin are always a joy to be around, aren't they? I mean Tabitha, Lily, Davison, God... they're all such funny, _funny _people.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Ninth Hand – Orbit<strong>_

_30th October, 2281_

The basement was dug well into the earth, a series of metal corridors and large, dimly lit rooms piled with chunk and torn apart by rabid searches; the hands of a century of scavengers delving into the long-abandoned facility in search of that one cache of Pre-War treasure that would set them for life. Failing that, they'd scavenged anything remotely shiny and hoped for enough money to reach Vegas and strike it grand at the betting tables. How many made it that far?

Didn't matter. Another metal door opened, the two sides sliding back and leaving the slab in the middle to slot into the floor.

Something stomped through the darkness and growled, thick and heavy chords in its throat.

Six slipped through and promptly jammed the lever back into the door frame, watching as the door slid back up and locked. His eyes were wide one moment, then squinted narrow and suspicious.

Jason had not lied. The 'demons' in the basement really were something just shy of invisible. Their silhouettes were only noticeable if one looked hard, hulking outlines shimmering in what little light there was, distortions rippling in the air. Certainly no demons, but something he knew he'd heard of before. No, he'd probably seen them before, when they weren't hiding.

"What's that, Antler? We have a visitor?"

A growling, thick voice, like the demons outside. In the room with him. He spun and took stock. An old office, a desk in the middle of the room with a long-dead terminal sitting on it, and on top of that a bull skull looking at him. The walls on both sides held filing cabinets, most hanging open and some outright torn out with their contents all over the floor, paperwork preserved well for decades within their metal safe-boxes.

Beyond the desk was a hallway leading down to another door, which seemed… odd. At the top of the door it jumped in the middle, running horizontally across and then spontaneously blurring upwards a short way before returning to its correct placement.

"Oh shit," the courier muttered.

There was the sound of electricity in the air, and suddenly the blurring around the door warped. Electricity arced across the distortion, revealing the bulge in the door to be the light bent around a form standing between it and Six, as he feared.

A moment later and the electricity ceased, revealing the massive form of a super mutant. Looking for all intents and purposes like a bulkier human, most super mutants also had a difference in skin colour. Traditionally they were green; however a specific class of the mutants was different. Their skin was a dark blue, changed by excessive use of a kind of Pre-War technology manufactured for covert special operations. Unfortunately, their skin was not the only thing that had changed within these mutants.

"An assassin, more like! I say kill it, Antler! For safe's sake!" the mutant growled, talking to the bull skull.

The enormous former man wore scraps of red cloth around his neck and chunks of leather put together around his shoulders. His torso was mostly bare, displaying a thick-skinned and muscular body. The rest of him was dressed in scraps of rags and more leather. His face, like all mutants, was set in a permanent grimace, aided by something akin to a rubber band stretching around behind his head and ending under the inside of his upper lip, curving under it and holding it up. Six didn't understand why, and no suppressed knowledge within him did either.

"Huh?" the mutant growled, looking between the drifter and the skull. There was a moment or two of silence. Six noticed that this mutant didn't carry a concrete hammer like the last mutant who'd seen him and dropped his stealth field to charge; screaming at the courier and brandishing a deadly chunk of former overpass support held in place by two rebar wires. This was even more intimidating: the bumper from a car, with one side cut shorter and then sharpened into a massive edge.

"Okay Antler. I'll ask," the mutant grunted, then turned back to Six, who could do little beyond return the attention. His heart was still beating from the first encounter, and since then he'd been creeping through the corridors terrified of every flicker of the basement's failing lights.

The mutant placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward, looking at the comparatively small, frail creature cowering at the other side. The grimace curved upwards as far as the mutant's lip would allow. Not a pretty smile. "Hi human. I Davison. Why you come here?" he asked as politely he could manage in a voice that was three quarters gravel and one quarter molasses.

"Me? Oh, yes, who else would it be?" the courier blubbered, before taking a breath. This one wasn't trying to kill him. The least he could do was talk straight in gratitude. "The ghouls asked me to come down and see why they weren't allowed downstairs. I'm Courier Six, by the way."

"A human who is friend to ghouls? Suspicious," Davison replied, looking him over. "You mean the ones upstairs. Antler used intercom, told them stay put. But they want to come down anyways?"

"What can I tell you?" Six sighed. "They need the basement for a job."

Davison was shaking his head and mumbling. He looked back up at the courier, still shaking his head. "I cannot allow. My kin are… not right in head like I am. They attack you on sight. Ghouls too. They crazy," he explained, almost all facts Six already knew.

Except the one about Davison being right in the head. That was new and contradictory information, but you roll with what you're given. "Your ghoul friends have to wait until you find what Antler brought us to get."

Courier Six looked at him. "Me? Well… alright," he decided. Another courier job, essentially. If nothing else, he seemed to be good at those.

"Good. Antler brought us here for a reason… Why was that, Antler?" the confused mutant asked, looking to the bull skull for reassurance. Yes, clearly Davison was right in the head. "Right! A piece of paper! Shipment invoice! Hundreds of stealth boys, sent here a long time ago…"

'Stealth boys', the rather un-threatening name for a device that when activated could turn a person nigh-invisible. The blue-skinned mutants had been changed by gaining a specialty for them, helping them utilise the technology, but with extended use came a number of drawbacks, all of them on the mental plane. One such example could be developing a split personality believed to be the deity soul inhabiting a bull skull, for example.

"But stealth boys must be in the one room we don't search yet – the one we can't search," Davison concluded.

"Why not?" Six inquired.

Davison growled. "A ghoul. But not squishy like others. This ghoul is tough. I thought Antler said send my kin into that room, but three died. Ghoul is a crack shot, and set traps too," the super mutant rumbled, crossing his enormous arms and standing back to full height, a hint of embarrassment in his face. "After, I realise I heard Antler wrong. So I lock the door to keep kin out and wait for Antler to tell me what to do. Then you come along. Antler says you are solution."

Twice in one day Six had played the role of divine messenger. Once for a radiantly glowing ghoul, and now for the dark-blue skinned mad mutant. He could open a business in celestial couriering if this was his average order rate. Hell, maybe his real name was Hermes!

"Alright," he said, his confidence returning to power now that the initial shock of the murderous building-sized beings wore off and his introverted joking setting him at ease. "So I find those stealth boys, you guys clear out, and the ghouls can come down and do whatever it is they need to do here. Sound alright?" he rationalised.

"Yes, Antler says we leave here as soon as we get the stealth boys," Davison agreed. "We uh, had incident with one of the ghouls who tried force her way in for key. Tell tough ghoul we sorry. Here, I give you key."

The mutant rummaged around in the scraps of clothing he wore and produced an old-styled iron key, which he tossed over the desk. Six ducked as the mutant's superhuman strength sent it clanging into the wall behind him with enough kinetic force to give him double vision for the next few hours.

Picking it up, he gave a wave, pivoted on the spot, and turned the wheel to open the door, crossing his eyes in an outward sign of 'cuckoo!' while Davison couldn't see.

Immediately he dropped low and began creeping through the metal corridors once more, somewhat cautiously but also unable to stop himself from being a little lighter of step for Davison's less brutal method of communication. The rest of his mutant friends might have been psychotic, but at least he was just unaware of his multiple personality disorder. Antler seemed nice too.

Really though, this whole thing was a little ridiculous. Blue super mutants had an almost one-hundred percent tendency toward insanity, sure, but the religious ghouls was a little less realistic.

Still, the world was a strange place. According to Morgan there were even legends of albino talking Deathclaws back in California. Six still didn't remember exactly what a Deathclaw was, but he knew they didn't talk.

He pressed himself against a corner as something huge stomped down the hallway around the corner, and once he was sure the footsteps were again moving away from him he slipped past and down a flight of stairs. The door he was looking for was one he'd already tried to open. Not like it'd be anything else, nowhere else in the basement was locked.

He paused again as he slipped down the stairs. Something was breathing heavily right in front of him. Closer inspection revealed he'd nearly walked straight into the back of another mutant, its shimmering outline right in front of him, slowly moving up and down as the former human stared at the door Davison had locked.

Taking a step back as quietly as he could, the courier looked around frantically for an alcove to scurry into and hide, but the closest was the corner back where another mutant was wandering, and he couldn't risk rounding the corner just to have his head pulverised by one of those hammers. His poor head had already been through a lot.

He could make a run for the door, but even unlocked they took a few seconds to open, and with a monster like that weighing down on him he doubted he'd get the key in the lock let alone turn it and then the door valve.

He drew his gun from his coat and held it approximately where the mutant's head would be if he turned around, and took an insane chance.

"This Antler. Let human pass, or Davison give you no stealth boys we find!" he said in his best impersonation of Davison. It was off, he knew. His voice carried a little more bass and not quite the thickness of the super mutant's voice no matter how hard he tried.

A burst of electricity and the mutant before him spun, his eyes wide with panic. "Antler speaks to me!" it said incredulously.

"I speak through human. He is messenger of Antler. Let him pass, he find stealth boys!" Courier Six growled, getting closer this time.

He could almost hear the grinding and whirring of the mutant's mind as it worked. The human said it was Antler. No, Antler spoke through the human and commanded he let him pass. If he didn't he would receive no stealth boys. The human really ought to be smashed into thin red paste on the floor though. But then Antler might be mad, and when they got past the ghoul in the room he'd get none of the hundreds of stealth boys. He really wanted the stealth boys. But why would Antler use a human? Then again, Antler's wisdom _was _unfathomable to lower minds. Could Antler actually speak through someone other than Davison? Shouldn't Davison have just come down himself to sort this matter out? This human was incredibly suspicious. But at the same time, Antler's blessing meant that harming him would cost him stealth boys. He really wanted the stealth boys. Maybe Antler could transfer its powers through Davison into others via some psychic link? Still, using a human seemed highly unnecessary when there were so many durable mutants around to do the job. Then again, Antler's wisdom _was _unfathomable to lower minds.

Six had already unlocked the door, opened it, stepped through, closed it again, and nearly walked into the first bear trap.

"Come and get it, you big dumb – Hey! You're not one of those things out there. Who the hell are you?" the guttural rasp of a ghoul asked, and Six looked up to see the 'tough' ghoul standing on a catwalk up above aiming a shotgun down at him.

He grinned. "Nice to meet you, I'm the cult courier, running religious messages from Antler to Bog. I'm here about your demon infestation. Bright sent me," he said, feeling thoroughly pleased with himself about getting past the 'checkpoint' without firing a single shot.

The ghoul spat, which verified that yes, ghouls did still produce saliva, before replying. "And I bet he told you it's the creators will for you to risk your ass, instead of him, right?" he wondered. Like most ghouls, this one had a gnarled face, but he still retained some of his hair, suggesting his ghoulification was somewhat more recent than many others. He wore some kind of combat armour, thick material in a vest and wrapped around his wrists, all of it black, and on his hands were black gloves.

"I think it may have been somewhere in the verbal contract, yes," Six replied, nodding.

The ghoul chuckled and lowered the weapon. "Well, good luck with that! I'd give you a hand, but no thanks. I may look like a corpse, but I'm partial to living!" he stated solidly.

The drifter slipped his own gun back into its holster and looked at the room before him. It was an expansive area once again, with crates stacked all across the ground floor and a square of catwalks above it. The ghoul had set up a number of bear traps on the floor, and the headless corpse of one super mutant was nearby, its foot still trapped in the cold metal jaws. Another slumped against the back wall, its entire front gone from blue to sick purple with red blood. The alleged third was nowhere to be seen.

"So how'd you get trapped back here?" he tried, launching a different dialogue to avoid talking about Bright and his religion.

The ghoul seemed to take offence. "First off, I'm not trapped. This was a tactical choice, all right? I'm no match for those things out there, so I found a good defensive position, and I've been defending it, right?" he explained, irritated. Then he sighed and let his gun fall completely to his side, the barrel aimed at the floor instead of somewhere around Six's feet. "Aw who am I fooling? I'm trapped. Name's Harland. Pleased to meet you."

The wanderer waved up at him. "Just call me courier, it's easier," he replied.

Harland nodded. "Alright then, courier. What happened was I was escorting folks down to work when those things attacked us. Most of the fight was upstairs, but some folks panicked and made for the basement. And I went after them. Well, turns out there were even more of those bastards down here than upstairs, and things went to shit fast. I couldn't find the others, so I fell back to this room and set up a nice little kill zone. End of story."

"Ouch, those things hit hard. Alright Harland, if I can have a look around in here I might be able to find something to get them out of the building, and then you and Bright can all go about your business undisturbed by psychotic blue mutants. Sound alright?" Courier Six asked, taking a careful step forward, past a bear trap.

Harland's shotgun was back to being pointed at him. "Ha, well you're polite, I'll give you that, and if it were just between you and me, I'd do as you ask. But it's not. I had a friend with me when those mutant bastards came out of nowheres. She panicked and ran the wrong direction – further into the basement. She's probably dead, but I ain't leaving until I know for sure. I'd have gone looking myself, except I wouldn't last a minute out there," he detailed, keeping his shotgun held steady, keeping Six on his toes between two bear traps, rather precariously.

He looked up at the ghoul and sighed. Davison had already explained her fate. "The mutant leader, Davison, says he's sorry about that. He thought she was trying to steal one of the keys, and it got a little messy."

Harland visibly sagged. "I see. Damn it, I'm going to miss that crooked, yellow smile… All right, look around up here if you want," he sighed, letting his weapon drop again and turning away.

Six hopped past the bear traps and scurried across the room to the staircase, feeling sorry for the mercenary. Clearly ghouls weren't incapable of love, or at least affection. Not that he'd expected they were mind. Even if it was basically necrophilia. Still, who exactly decided what was right and what was wrong in this impossibly fucked up world? Two corpses in love weren't so different from two humans in love. Except for the skin and hair. Possibly bodily- really, enough of that kind of thinking.

Behind the catwalks was a small alcove in the upstairs where a desk was set, atop which was a computer, this one still in working condition. Six wandered over and checked the desk drawers. A few bottle caps which he quickly snatched up, a toy car and a few scraps of rusted metal. Nothing impressive.

He tried the terminal next, and found it unlocked, remarkably. Tapping on the keyboard, he found himself looking at a small collection of notes arranged by date.

The first was about the shipment of stealth boys, two whole crates sent here by mistake. The next was about employees swiping them and using them illegally. Office pranks mostly, and a few episodes of harassment. The third claimed they'd been sealed in this very room.

Aha! The fourth told him that they'd been sent back to RobCo HQ, where they were manufactured. Davison wouldn't be pleased.

"I'm going to make a break for topside," Harland said, passing Six on his way to the stairs.

"Hang on," Six said, stepping back from the console and following him. "I'm going to go speak to Davison about the shipment he's hunting for. If I tell him they're not here he should take the mutants and leave."

"Or kill you," Harland pointed out.

"Or kill me," Six agreed. "Either way it'll cause commotion. Slip past then. Your signal will be either gunfire, mutants screaming, or me coming back to tell you."

Harland paused and looked him up and down. "All right," he said eventually. "What's another ten minutes?"

"That's the spirit," Six said with a grin, carefully making his way over the bear traps once again and turning the door valve.

It slid open, and he passed through, closing it again behind him.

The super mutant hadn't cloaked himself yet, and was still staring hard at the patch of ground in front of him. Six cleared his throat quietly. "Antler thanks you for your patience. Please proceed to the upstairs with the rest of our kin, and Davison will explain everything shortly." He'd have to work more on his super mutant voice at some point.

The super mutant regressed into thought once again. He really really wanted to just pulverise the human, but the upstairs speech from Davison must have been important. Why use a human messenger again? Ah well, Antler's wisdom _was _unfathomable to lower minds.

Slipping through the corridors, Six was getting the hang of the subterranean collection of corridors as he opened the door to Davison's 'office' to find the mutant seated at his desk

"Yes, Antler, but don't queens move like 'L's? Oh, that's knights? Hurhn."

"Not interrupting am I?" the courier asked, stepping forward. Davison looked up, his conversation about chess pieces interrupted.

"Antler sings for stealth boys. Have you found them?" he demanded.

The wanderer shook his head. "I'm afraid there aren't any in the building anymore," he explained.

"Liar!" Davison bellowed, slamming his enormous hand _through_ the desk. Suddenly Six was scared of mutants again. "The invoice said stealth boys here! Antler read it out loud to me!"

Taking a deep breath, Six looked at the enormous being. "They were sent here by mistake. They got sent back to RobCo HQ, wherever that is."

"But invoice said stealth boys were here! Why can't that note be true?" he demanded further. "What, Antler…? But human could be lying! Stealing the stealth boys for itself!"

Six began to reach for his gun again. The other hand slowly went for his machete.

"Oh Antler, you trust so easy!" Davison growled in a defeated tone, and Six relaxed somewhat. "Your lucky day, human, Antler believe you," he continued, like a child deprived of sweets. "Nightkin will follow the new note to find stealth boys. Better be there."

As Davison picked up the bull skull – Antler – and walked away, Six stepped aside and realised that 'Nightkin' was the name of Davison's class of super mutant; the stealthy blue ones who were able to harness the powers of the Pre-War stealth boys.

Before long, the basement was empty. He and Harland made their way back upstairs in silence, both wrapped up in their own thoughts; Harland probably of the fallen ghoulette, and Six on Nightkin, cults, and walking corpses.

As they stepped out of the basement and began making their way up the catwalks, the wanderer was roused from his thoughts as Harland spoke.

"You did good, smoothskin. Never thought I'd get out of that room," the ghoul thanked.

His companion nodded, and his hand twitched as if he was going to clap Harland on the back, but he never got that far. "You're welcome," he replied, simply.

When Harland stepped through the door to Bright's hideout, he was greeted with an enthusiastic chorus from the robed ghouls inside, and Six could see he appreciated the attention.

Through their midst, the glowing ghoul that led them walked, stopping a safe distance from the courier. "Is the way clear?" he asked, and the chorus fell to silence immediately.

Harland looked at him and grinned in a crooked, heart-warming way. "The 'demons' shall trouble you no more," Courier Six stated.

Once again, the ghouls were celebrating, even greater than before. The rasping, guttural sounds of their voices seemed an odd throng to Six, but it was not unwelcome.

Chief among them was Jason Bright himself, who… shone with appreciation. "Praise the Creator! And bless you, wanderer! The way is clear. I will lead my flock through the basement to the sacred site," he said joyously. "I hope you will come with us, wanderer. There is much to be done."

"More, on top of all that's already happened?" Six inquired, stepping backwards as Jason began advancing toward him. With no choice between the oncoming radiation and the catwalk behind him, the courier moved backwards until he could stand aside and watch the congregation go past, down into the basement, to the 'sacred site' Jason spoke of.

Almost forgetting his robotic companion, Six nearly made to follow them immediately, before dashing back upstairs to collect the floating orb with an apology. ED-E's static hissing and beeping seemed to indicate it was aware that irritation was an acceptable response to this treatment, and it enjoyed the opportunity.

As the last of them vanished into the lower levels, Six sighed and followed. Despite what he'd done here, the ghouls had yet to actually leave, and he'd told the sniper he'd see them gone. It was certainly too late to just start killing them all.

Following them down through the maze of the underground, he noticed that they were passing through the office Davison had occupied. As they went, Harland stopped to collect the fallen ghoul's body and carried it with him. Clearly she'd meant something to the once-human creature.

He passed through a door Davison had previously barred and found that a secret staircase had been concealed beneath one of the floor panels, technology built before the Great War by secretive businesses that needed ways to hide the darker offices of their research and agendas.

Another tunnel followed, this one long and narrow, sunken in the middle, like a sewer passage, though if it had once served any drainage purposes that had ceased; it was dry as a bone. Yet still the building's power kept the dim lights to lead the way.

Nothing hid in this darkness; it was a tranquil, inky black in the shadows where the pitiful lights could not reach, untouched by the more disturbing aspects of life beyond the world's death. At least, until recently, when a cult of ghouls had arrived.

A large metal door, bigger than the others he'd previously been through, stood open before him. Beyond it hundreds of little lights lit up a room, and as Six stepped in he found himself in a technological archive of Pre-War computers, all linked and still operational.

Chris, the human who believed himself a ghoul, wandered about between the consoles checking lights, displays, flicking switches, and other things that presumably promised success in whatever venture they were designed for. A window sat at the front of the room, through which a mild green glow could be seen, and Six immediately knew there was more radiation down there. He wasn't about to push his luck by scavenging then.

Jason stood in front of the window, one hand in the other, watching Chris work. Behind him, in the green light, the drifter realised something else was looming. A cylinder of some kind.

"I waited to speak with you one last time before I descended to the launch pad, wanderer," the ghoul leader said, stepping forward. Six backed up as Jason's presence pushed him back into the tunnel and Bright shut the door behind him again.

"What's the deal?" he inquired. "Don't want me hanging about your holy site?"

"I do not want Chris to hear us," Jason replied, looking at the courier seriously. "I want you to know that we will remember for all eternity how you delivered us to the threshold of the Great Journey. If you would still help us further, speak to Chris. There are a few aspects of the launch he could use your aid with."

"Speaking of Chris…" Six pointed out, cutting through Jason's talk of prophecy and messiahs.

Bright nodded. "After all that you have done for us, I suppose you deserve to know," he admitted. "When Chris came to us, we tried to convince him that he was human. But this only seemed to anger him. He seemed… lost. We decided to let him stay with us for a few days, over the course of which we learned that his technical skills far surpassed our own. It became clear that the Creator sent him to us, to ensure the success of the Great Journey."

Six cocked an eyebrow at the explanation disbelievingly, but Jason ignored him and continued his story.

"Equally clear was that Chris should labour in blessed ignorance of his humanity, and his inability to make the journey himself," the glowing one explained.

"What kind of an excuse is that?" the courier questioned, his eyebrow rising further. "You've had him help you get ready for this… 'journey' knowing full well he could never join you, but promising it all the same."

"It is no coincidence two humans have been vital to the success of the Great Journey!" Bright justified. "It is my belief the Creator sent you and Chris to expiate the sins of your kind against mine. You are redeemers both."

"Bottom line: you're leaving him behind," the courier said flatly.

"Such is the Creator's will. Vision upon vision has shown me that, were Chris to accompany us, he would die in minutes. The radiation around the launch pad alone would kill Chris. The radioactivity in the Far Beyond is much stronger," the cult leader continued to justify and excuse himself.

Six turned away from the ghoul and crossed his arms, scowling.

"It is the Creator's will, and I must submit!" Bright stated in the double-layered voice. "There is no malice in it; we would take him with us if we could!"

"You justify this to me. Chris is right there beyond that door, yet you're talking to me. I don't know what to say, Bright. Maybe I should have interpreted that radioactive glow you give off like I would any other, instead of giving you special treatment. I've done my part, and I'll send you on your 'Great Journey'. Tell stories about me or condemn me for all eternity, I don't care. Just go," he spat venomously over his shoulder.

The sigh that echoed through the tunnel was eerie, like a ghost. "There is no way we can thank you enough, wanderer. Your arrival here was a blessing. We will remember you. Always."

The door opened again, and Jason walked away, taking his beliefs and excuses with him. Six stood in the tunnel for some time, letting the storm of his own indignation burn itself out. Finally, he sighed, nowhere near as audible as Jason's, and turned around.

The cylinder – he saw it was flanked by two more – stood ready on the launch pad below. Three rocket ships, to carry a cult of ghouls away on a journey to a promised land. How absurd.

"Jason says I am to cooperate with you on the final tasks necessary to launch the Great Journey," Chris growled, watching him.

Six stared at him. Smooth skin. Bald head. Very much human. "Chris, why can't you go down onto the launch pad?" he asked.

It was Haversam's turn to sigh. "When I joined the flock, Jason made it clear that he wanted me to supervise repairs, not do them myself," he explained.

"Because the radiation on the launch pad would kill you. Because radiation kills humans," the courier jabbed again.

"I thought we were past all that, smoothskin. But you just can't resist the chance to mess with me. Typical human. I was human once, you know. Grew up in Vault 34, east of here," Chris replied nostalgically. "Nice upbringing, if you like assault rifles and target practice. But oh, you prefer machines that don't kill people? Not so nice then. 'Who should maintain the Vault's reactor? Houser? Mitchell? No – make it Haversam. He likes machines! Haversam won't mind getting irradiated! Haversam won't mind mutating! He's already ugly as it is! Haversam won't mind when his hair starts falling out after a few years! There's no connection, Haversam! You're neurotic!'"

A few seconds of silence fell, and Six processed the ranting. Then he laughed. "You left your Vault because you were going bald!"

"Bald! You call this _bald_ smoothskin! I'm a monster! A monster!" Haversam replied, like something out of a bad movie.

"Oh for fuck's sake," the courier said, frustrated and tired at still being on the job this long past midnight. He grabbed Chris by the back of his lab coat's collar and dragged him over to the window, thrusting his face into it so that he could see his reflection. "Skin. Smooth skin. No hair, something that happens to men, especially the high strung ones like you. Go on, run your hands over your face. Smooth. Get it? _Smooth_!" he yelled, letting him go and stepping back. "How the fuck did you not notice that you still have eyebrows? What about the moustache? You. Are. Human."

The penny dropped.

"Oh god… you're telling the truth…" Chris realised, studying his reflection for what must have been the first time in a very long time.

Six wanted to cry with joy. Or beat the delusional sod out of his mind. He settled for a triumph for the forces of reason.

"Oh no! How could they do this to me? For two years! My god, I've been a joke to them!" Chris wallowed in self-pity. Then he paused, and turned around, looking at Six hysterically. "Do you have any idea how easy it'd be for me to sabotage these rockets? That'd be a joke, huh? One hell of a joke!"

Perhaps he'd overdone it with the 'proof of humanity'. "No need to go that far, Chris. Bright deceived you, not the rest of them. You're not going to blow them all up."

"What, you think I'm too stupid to pull it off? I know enough to get their rockets working, don't I? So I can make them fail, too!" he said proudly.

The wanderer shook his head. "Let's just get those kooks on their way so we don't have to hear from them again," he said.

But Chris was red with fury. His devotion, in his eyes, had been a lie. Everything he'd worked towards had been manipulation and deceit. "They used me! And now they'll throw me away!"

Six's frustration peaked again, and this time it wasn't a simple grab that expressed it. This time he went straight to violence. His hand clenched into a fist and he slammed it straight into Chris' forehead. To the man's credit, he wobbled, but didn't fall. Six wasn't the best with nothing but his fist, but he knew he threw a decent punch. "They used you? No, they took you in, moron! When you were too stubborn to realise you were just aging! Now you want to kill them all just because your mid-life crisis was solved by lying ghouls? Would you rather you were still running around the wastes telling everyone you were a ghoul? Maybe you could go see one of the patrols from Caesar's Legion, ask them to treat you like a ghoul! Newsflash, lightbulb, you're a goddamn human. We outnumber ghouls. There's a town less than an hour down the road that would love someone who knows about machines! But no, you want to suck those religious idiots into your vacuum of self-pity because they couldn't break through your delusions. Get over it."

Thoroughly stunned, both physically and mentally, Chris fell into a rhythm of rubbing his forehead and muttering.

Finally, his trance ended. "Life amongst humans again, that's what you're suggesting? I guess…" he trailed off, and looked out at the rockets, where the ghouls waited for their signal. "I guess it's the only chance I've got. I can't believe I'm agreeing to this, but I'll give it a try. I'll get Jason and his flock on their way, and then I'll head for Novac."

Six noticed he was still talking as though he was a ghoul. After long enough, it must have just become second nature.

"So what needs to be done?"

"I need to operate things here, but for the launch I need you to go up to the viewing platform and trigger the primary mechanism. Make sure everything up there stays green, and I'll do my part down here," Haversam explained. Already he was showing signs of reform. After the shock, it seems he'd be quite the rocket scientist.

"Alright, that's all?" the courier double checked.

"Yes. Get going. I'll tell Jason we're ready," Chris replied, shooing him away with a hand as he tapped a few buttons on one of the room's many consoles.

The drifter looked about, finding the viewing platform signposted as being down up a long ladder that was set into the wall on the right side of the control room. Chris spoke into the intercom as he left, and in the narrow ladder chute he could hear the strange, delusional man's words echo around him.

"The rockets are ready Jason. The Great Journey can begin. Good luck, I guess."

Jason Bright, leader of the Bright Followers, could be heard over the intercom as he addressed his flock. His voice, already echoing itself when he spoke, filled the tunnel as Six ascended.

"Gather, all. May the Creator guide my words and help me speak true. The almighty Creator has seen fit to answer our prayers! The time has come for us to board the rockets, and begin the Great Journey. Though it may seem that all humans despise us, the Creator has seen fit to instruct us differently. The journey ahead would have been impossible if not for the intersection of two human friends, one new, the other a long abiding companion. To our new friend, we say thanks, and promise to never forget how he cleared from our path the demons who sought to stay our journey. But to Chris… we owe more than thanks. Chris; you have made this great journey a reality. From this moment forward, you will be remembered as the Saint of the Great Journey. We shall never forget you. I ask that you forgive us, Chris, and give us your blessing – and we bestow ours upon you."

Six wasn't sure, but over the speech, he thought he heard the sounds of someone sobbing.

He reached the viewing platform, noting that a fire escape dropped away to the outside. He was in a small metal box atop a cliff face looking out over the REPCONN plaza. The model rocket was a dark entity dominating the courtyard's centre, and in the light of the stars and what little of the moon had grown in the days since its new birth illuminated the enormous dome seated in the rock face behind the plaza. Most of the front of the viewing platform was wide and open, the glass that once was there had fallen away years ago, leaving the air to blow dust across the metal.

There was a large console here, still working, like the rest of the building, which was showing green lights, all except for one. Six wasn't excellent with machines that he could tell, but after looking at it carefully, he found the problem; a slight problem with the rocket trajectory, which the computer could easily compensate for, as long as a human was there to okay the decision. Six did just that, and watched as the last light turned green.

A smaller console sat facing out toward the dome, Six could see in what little light there was the switch labelled 'launch'. He took a deep breath. This certainly wasn't what he expected when he woke up yesterday morning.

The enormous dome began to open, two halves sliding open to reveal the rockets as they rose upon the launch pad.

He spared a glance at the console. All green. He chuckled. Like Bright. All green.

The rocket engines ignited, spewing flames behind them. They were held in place on the launch pad though. First they'd build thrust…

All engines burst into life, one after the other, until the rear of the rockets were nothing but masses of flame, ready to propel the rest of their enormous bulk forwards.

Chris must have been working overtime down there, doing the job a team of engineers would typically do. He pulled it off well though. The doors of the dome were locked in place, open. The engines reached full power, and an alarm began to ring.

For a moment Six panicked. Then, somewhere in the bowels of REPCONN, Chris Haversam, the man who'd believed himself a ghoul, who had left the safety of his Vault in the belief he was a mutant, pressed one last button.

The Bright Followers were released to the skies, as the launch pad released the rockets and they burst forward with ferocious lust for the sky. One swerved wildly and for one heart-stopping moment Courier Six believed his life would be snuffed out by a rocket ship smashing into him.

It corrected and joined the other two, much to his eternal pleasure, and surged into the sky, illuminating the dark heavens with three great trails of fire ripping across the sky and into the atmosphere.

His deal with Manny Vargas, concerned Novac protector, was complete on his side. Now he'd obtain the information he wanted. He'd continue his hunt. And hundreds of years from now Jason Bright would tell the tale of how the wanderer had arrived to cleanse the 'demons' that blocked the path, and how Chris Haversam, balding, delusional moron, had redeemed humanity in the eyes of the ghouls.

He made for the fire escape, choosing not to trouble the scientist as he enjoyed his triumph alone and hid his emotions, laughing all the while. "What a night!" he laughed on the way down, wandering through the empty plaza with ED-E in tow, the robot's sensors alert for any dangerous threats in the darkness.

The road back to Novac was uneventful, and Manny would have been asleep when he returned anyway, so he made no attempt at hurry. Finally, the tee wrecks appeared before him, and he gratefully strolled towards it, eager to return to bed.

ED-E buzzed as he moved, and from experience he knew the sound meant he detected something. A moment later, Six could hear it too. The sound of a lone tire rolling along asphalt two hundred years old. A moment later, the voice was added too.

"Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, if it ain't my old friend from Goodsprings!"

The electronic cowboy who dug him out of his grave.

It was Victor.

_~Orbit: A full rotation of all blinds at the table, with each player in turn opting into the hand rather than folding pre-emptively._


	11. Tenth Hand: SoftPlay

__Not much to say about this one. Thanks for reading, everybody, hope you're still enjoying it. At this point we're starting to get into the more volatile areas of the Mojave, and with that you'll start to see bits and pieces that will be relevant in the future cropping up, as well as Nightstalkers being more dangerous than you're used to. Because they should be threatening, but the game doesn't really give you reason to fear them.

Right now though, we have the addition of a new original character, and he will be rather important, just like Richard.

Onward hoe!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Tenth Hand – Soft-Play<strong>_

_25__th__ July, 2268_

The wind was howling outside, a veritable tempest ripping at the shell of a dwelling. The air was freezing as I huddled in the corner, shivering and weak, clutching Cerberus in terror.

The walls were plywood that over the course of the years had been reinforced with stone, at least in parts. Something had torn a hole in the west side of the house, an explosion or an enraged creature at some point or another, and it had never been fixed.

Now we were borrowing it, taking shelter from the dust storm outside as it surged across the land, obliterating every weak thing caught in its path.

Dad was in front of us, watching the hole. An old pair of biker goggles he'd picked up long ago was over his eyes to protect him from any of the sand, but thankfully the wind was blowing it at a different angle, one that wouldn't blow it inside. Still, that didn't stop some of it from flowing in.

My mother was behind him, in front of me, standing protectively with one hand unconsciously held as if blocking something from reaching me. The other was over her forehead, keeping both her hair and any stray dust from blinding her.

It came again, a snarl outside, directly behind me. Another joined it, further away but carried in by the wind. I was breathing heavier, more panicked. They were everywhere.

"Shhh," my mother quieted, and I swallowed my fear with a small nod. I needed to remain calm. Composed.

As long as they didn't discover the hole we'd be fine. The storm would pass, and so would they, off to search for something else to devour.

But I couldn't shake it. I couldn't stop the fear of what might happen when they found it from appearing in my mind. Those disgusting things.

I'd shot things before, sure. Mole rats and radroaches. Even a bark scorpion once. But these things… they howled and groaned, and then… the way they _screeched _when they saw someone. They weren't human. Not anymore.

A ghoul roared, broadcasting its hunger from somewhere closer to the breach in our shelter. A dangerous creature moving closer to its access point.

A shiver ran down my spine, and Cerberus, sensing the terror welling up in me again, placed a clumsy paw on my knee, which promptly slid off again. I appreciated the gesture, ruffling the shaggy creature's mane.

If only I hadn't dropped that gun dad had given me, I might have been able to help. Or at least give mum something to use. As it was, I was useless, just a charge that they'd defend with their lives, and that worried me.

One more ghoul added a guttural tone to the chorus of yawns and groans, but this one was so much worse. Dad had told me about them. Ghouls who hadn't had everything in their minds wiped out, who still had some small shred of sanity that pleaded with the rest of their being to die.

"Huuuungerrrrrrrrrr…" it rasped, barely coherent, but with enough consciousness within itself to understand the depths of its murderous and violent needs.

I gasped in terror. And they heard it.

_~ Vault 21: Everything's better when you experience it in a Vault! ~_

_31__st__ October, 2281_

Benny!

The snake who wore a Vegas suit adorned with checkers and had stolen away with his delivery!

Finally, a name to put to a smug face!

Novac's daytime sniper had been a man of his word, and had more than just told Six where he was going next; he'd explained what the suave cat from Vegas had been doing ringed by his former brothers and sisters.

Whatever the Platinum Chip was, Benny had wanted it badly. But a man used to living in luxury like that wasn't adept at walking the wastes like a borderline raider was. He'd approached the Khans with promises of money in exchange for guarding him on his way and helping him ambush a courier.

The drifter, after his death, had been chasing them back to Vegas all along, though that had been becoming more and more apparent as time went on anyway. Whatever Benny planned to do upon his return to the City of Sin, he'd stop moving, and that gave Six the chance to move in for his prize.

Perhaps this dash across the Mojave was unnecessary, given that fact. Benny apparently lived in Vegas as more than a simple tourist, and there was no doubt at all that he'd be staying there while he enacted whatever plan it was he had in mind.

But with a snake like that, there were a number of problems that could arise. Pausing would be giving him time to sit inside his casino gave him time to plan, and time to mount a defence. It gave him time to hear the tale of a courier shot in the head and now walking the Mojave for answers.

No, best not stop now. Walk fast, walk far. Nothing gained he'd say was worth pausing at the thought of losing yet anyway. A few titles and the gratitude of a few communities. Intangible; something that'd keep a memory alive more than a physical form.

Then there was Victor.

A surprise he hadn't expected, but in retrospect he well should have. The robot who hired the couriers as Nash claimed, and after a brief discussion the wheeled tin can even went so far as to claim credit for the assault on the Jackals back before Nipton – an action that very well could have saved Courier Six's life again.

Twice he was in the metal cowboy's pocket, and he'd showed up in Novac beaming the same cowboy's face and talking in an amiable cowpoke tone. Behind it though, Six had heard undertones of all kinds – one moment Victor spoke as though threatening the wanderer about forgetting his mission, the next he rather sheepishly confessed feeling responsible for the young man whose life he'd saved.

Like the wanderer was his pet, with Victor rolling along behind him holding the leash, warning him not to stray too far off the path, stepping in whenever something threatened him.

Courier Six, the bloodhound, stalking the Mojave in his hunt for a snake and the stolen property it held.

He'd left No-Bark to tie the robot up with his accusations and stories and hit the road as fast as possible so that he'd be rid of the wheeled machine quickly. Trudy had confessed a distrust of that thing back in Goodsprings, and now Six was well and truly in agreement.

The road was dusty and quiet much of the way. One day on the road had seen him passing a scrap yard owned seemingly by a simple old lady with an enormous pack of dogs of various breeds who'd smiled happily and waved as he'd strolled on by.

The cheer, despite all the courier's unease and suspicion, had been infectious, and after a while he'd forgiven Mr. New Vegas for playing Johnny Guitar and switched the thick voice of Tabitha and Rhonda the Super Mutants back to his pleasing tones, and happily marched on down the road with his Pip-Boy jukebox singing songs for travel on his arm as loud as he could turn it.

Away to his east he'd heard gunfire as the day had flowed into afternoon, and he'd observed a party of Legion soldiers charging a small contingent of NCR troops, armed with machetes and rifles. The NCR troopers had fought back with automatic weapons, but the Legion were smart. One had used a trooper as a human shield, and the other two hesitated.

At the end of the battle the score was NCR: 1, Legion: 3. The remaining two Legionaries had paused and stared at him as he walked past with his Pip-Boy playing.

He'd crept back with it off and blown both their heads off. Legion: 0, Courier Six: 2.

To the west an enormous tower speared into the sky, scorched road signs calling it 'HELIOS One'. A solar power plant, farming the sun's light for electricity.

Another triumph of Pre-War engineering, the way they converted natural phenomena into a source of power to run things.

It hadn't been enough, in the end, to stop the world killing itself over other resources, though.

He'd slept the night in a roadside service station and slipped out in the morning as ED-E alerted him to the gang of raiders who called it home on their way back from a night's pillage. Polite as always, he'd left his hosts a gracious gift, and when Victor rolled past hours behind him the robot found several mangled corpses blown apart by mines, and another with their head caved in by a trap involving a trip-wire and a loose section of the station's ceiling.

What few raiders remained had been superstitious enough to leave almost immediately.

Come midday the drifter had found himself in the company of another man, one with an impressively large handlebar moustache, who simply dubbed himself the Lonesome Drifter. Another man in search of his past, but this one capable of playing his guitar – a beautiful object he said was a gift from his father – better than firing a gun.

Six had paused there for a time and spoken with the man, both discussing their pasts. The Lonesome Drifter hailed from some place named Montana, and was only two years older than the courier himself. His father, a mysterious man who the Drifter said was a stranger even to those closest to him, had up and left one day without giving his reasons, before the Drifter was even old enough to follow.

In exchange for the tale, Six had recounted his – what little he knew – and the Drifter had offered his sympathies and then asked if the wanderer would mind having a song written about him.

Flattered, Courier Six had accepted, stretched his legs, and decided to return to the road, bidding the musician a goodbye and expressing a sincere desire to meet him again one day when he could hear his song.

Evening had come, and Six left the road, cutting across the sand and dirt towards the next place the Khans had stopped – Boulder City.

While they were almost certainly returning to Vegas, the courier wanted also to understand his prey better, and with evening approaching an hour or two off the road in the dark was well worth information and a bed.

As he came upon it, the courier saw what was left of the place appearing as hulking giants in the night. Buildings with upstairs, and nearby, walled off, a host of skeletons, jagged mortar and concrete reaching for the stars, but too broken to reach them.

ED-E hummed static beside him, bobbing up and down as he strode into the living half of Boulder City to find a collection of NCR soldiers arguing about something in the ruins.

At first he'd ignored them, and instead concentrated on observing the monument that commemorated the location.

Boulder City was the site of the final blow during the Battle of Hoover Dam four years prior. Pushed back from the Dam itself the rangers of the New California Republic to which Richard Morgan proudly belonged had been rallied by their chief, a man named Hanlon. Alongside an elite sniper unit – the 'first recon' – they'd lured Caesar's greatest warriors into Boulder City and trapped it extensively.

Reckless and confident, Caesar's military general (the Legion title was 'Legate') had fallen straight into the trap. Drunk on victory, he'd rallied some of the Legion's best and charged straight into the town with the intent to bring down the legendary rangers of the West.

Following what could have been a crippling loss, Chief Hanlon and the NCR Rangers sacrificed a city to sever the head of the mighty Bull. It had not been a killing blow to the Legion, or even, somehow, the Legate, who had been seen walking back across the Dam to his leader, but it had won the battle, and Hanlon had been hailed as one of NCR's greatest heroes.

The memorial commemorated the enormous list of identified bodies that followed in the wake of that bloodbath.

A young private exchanged a few words with him, pride radiating from him, and the Courier learned that this younger brother to a fallen hero had come here to finish the job his sibling helped start.

Wishing him luck, Six's attention whipped back to the soldiers talking in front of the gate to the ruined section of the city as a familiar and important word sprang up.

Moving that way, a lieutenant stopped him, and confirmed what he'd heard.

"We've got a situation with some Great Khans right now. The brass at McCarran has ordered me to lock down the ruins until it's been resolved," the man, named Monroe said, looking up from seat near the door to the desecrated section of the area. Static flowed through the ham radio sitting atop it, and it looked like it made the man uneasy.

"You know I'm looking for a few Khans. Maybe this is them. What's happening?" the wanderer asked, ignoring the lieutenant's authority.

The man sighed and scratched his cheek. "One of my patrols was on its way back from Novac when it came under fire from the Great Khans. They radioed for reinforcements, but instead of waiting for us they chased the Khans into the ruins and were caught in a crossfire," the soldier reported in a formal tone. He wasn't used to differentiating between civilian and authority when it came time to explain.

"Sounds like tactical planning at its finest," Courier Six replied sarcastically.

"No deaths, but not all of the squad made it out. They've got two hostages in there."

"Could have been worse," Six observed, and quickly took advantage of the situation. "You need a mediator who isn't tied to either side. Lay down some terms, courier the message over to them; send the same courier back with their answer."

The lieutenant looked at him, his eyes narrowing slightly as he wondered what ulterior motives the drifter might have. "Normally I'd turn you down, given I have no idea who you are," he said flatly. "But considering the hostages are as good as dead when we attack…"

There was a moment where Monroe second-guessed himself and wondered if letting some no-name (literally, though he didn't know that) courier walk into a volatile situation like this, but his willingness to try a new approach to a situation where every other path ended in a massacre won out.

"All right, I'm going to give you a chance to talk to the Great Khans. Their leader is a man named Jessup," he said finally. "If we hear shooting, we're coming in, but it'll probably be too late for you."

"You'd be surprised what a courier like me could do," Six replied with a grin. Monroe sent him through the gate with a 'good luck'.

"ED-E, you wait here by the door. If you hear gunfire, come help me out, but stay out of sight until then, got it, buddy?" he instructed his hovering companion, who beeped in response.

What was left of the NCR's ambush was a testament to war – an innocent settlement in utter ruin. Pacing down the short street, Six spotted the first Khan in moments, and threw his hands up in the air in a sign of peace. He didn't need another nine millimetre to the head.

Looking closer, he saw hunting rifles. Worse than nine millimetres by a considerable amount.

Striding slowly, Six approached the intersection and saw the Khans in full force. Two NCR troopers were seated on their knees, hands and legs tied, with their heads down. When they heard footsteps on the asphalt they looked up, and curiosity sparked in their eyes. Neither NCR nor Khan approached.

The Great Khans were struck dumb, and Six knew this was indeed the same contingent. "Blackjack," he muttered, grinning – hell, outright _beaming _at the men and women who'd ambushed him about three weeks earlier and supposedly blasted his head in.

While they were gazing at him in disbelief the courier who died reached down and flicked his radio back on and laughed out loud when the song was about a kick in the head.

"Point me to Jessup?" he asked the nearest member of his former tribe, who, in disbelief, pointed to a building whose ground floor was still intact, with all four walls, just behind the hostages.

Placing his hand on the doorknob Six breathed in and prepared for a meeting. This could be it. He was already feeling an adrenaline rush.

He pushed the door inwards and stepped into the room beyond, bellowing "BENNY!" at the top of his lungs.

What he got was a ruined convenience store, standing behind the counter of which was the excitable man who'd been digging Six's grave.

His orange mohawk was still as ostentatious as it had been the night he'd helped kill the courier, and his eyes widened once again as he beheld a courier.

"What the hell! You're that courier Benny wasted back in Goodsprings! You're supposed to be dead!" he exclaimed, as if telling it his way would make it happen his way.

Unable to stop himself, Six's response was sardonic: "I got better."

Jessup stayed stunned a few moments more. "And here I thought us Great Khans were tough to kill. So, what happens now?" he finally asked.

Strolling over to the counter, Six leaned across it and looked hard at the Khan. No memories of him, and Jessup clearly had no memories of the courier beyond murdering him. Couldn't count on his attachment to them for special treatment then. Still, they hadn't killed him again the second you walked him. It was a start.

"Where's the Platinum Chip?" Six asked deadpan.

"Don't have it," the Khan deflected quickly. "Benny stole it, right before he stabbed us in the back. He's probably back at the Strip by now, laughing at me."

"Well doesn't that sound convenient? What convinced a suit like him to leave the protection of the Great Khans and run for Vegas all alone?" the courier wondered in a tone that was only a little below threatening.

Jessup noted it, and it wasn't hard to see that he was put out by the idea of facing down a man who'd already risen from the grave. Realistically it had made Courier Six weaker than before, but the distinct lack of death was an anomaly. A chronic case of life that even two bullets couldn't cure.

"He's a snake, that's why," Jessup stated indignantly. "He owed us the rest of the pay for the job, so maybe he didn't wanna pay up."

"Reasonable enough," the courier admitted. "I've talked to a few people, but they only painted part of the picture: who exactly is Benny? He's a high ranking figure in Vegas, but that's as far as I've gotten."

An older looking Khan pushed open a door behind the counter and sighed, before realising who Jessup was talking to and promptly pivoting to walk back out. Jessup ignored him.

"He's one of the Chairmen, big shots who run The Tops casino. One of his guys keeps contact with me, and he passed along the job notice. I should've known that the caps were too good to be true, but there was still no way to pass up the chance…" the Khan lamented, pulling his bandana down to wipe his brow and then readjusting it.

"And the delivery he killed me over?"

"Just a big, fancy poker chip as far as I know. Don't know why anyone would make one out of platinum, though."

The courier sighed. It didn't end at the Khans then. These ones didn't even know he used to be one of them. Then again, he hadn't been a part of their community in years as far as he could tell. Faces fade from memory, if they're ever there to begin with.

"So what about you, then?" Six wondered, glaring at Jessup. "You're the reason Benny managed to do that. All of this."

"Hey, we didn't ask for this either," he defended, glaring back. "I got nothing against couriers and nothing against you. It was a damn fine job, and Benny was the one who wanted you killed for it."

"Nothing personal. How cliché," the courier sighed dryly.

"Yeah, well that's how it is."

Pushing off the counter and stepping back, Six considered his options. Clearly his road was to take him to Benny in the heart of Vegas. Any hopes he had of catching him before he reached there were well and truly buried now. The uncertain quality was the Khans and whether or not they could be trusted.

The image of the hulking man, Chance, appeared in his mind. A friend amongst them. Alyssa too, with her clothing a size or two too small.

He might as well ask.

"I know some Khans. Chance and Alyssa. Where are they now?" he ventured.

Jessup's eyes widened further. "Chance? How do you know Chance?" he demanded, and Six felt a rush. He was on to something!

He returned to the counter. "I used to be a Great Khan. Left, don't remember why. Chance was a good friend, helped me fit in. Alyssa too," he explained.

One hope winked out. "I don't know any 'Alyssa'. Chance, though, I knew Chance," Jessup said, looking towards the door the other Khan had appeared from.

"I get the feeling I'm about to hear something bad," the courier sighed.

"Yeah. On the way south, we ran into some Fiends… he charged them, hopped up on psycho. Got himself killed," Jessup explained.

Steam was boiling in the kettle as Six double-checked the sentence in his head. "On the way south?" he reiterated. "Tell me you don't mean…?"

Jessup just nodded.

The string of obscenities that followed left every Khan in the vicinity considerably more on edge.

No Alyssa. No Chance.

Fucking great.

"Alright, fine, let's just get the damn negotiations done. After this, consider any debts I had with the Khans square," the courier finally breathed.

"The NCR backs off, we walk out of here, nobody gets hurt," Jessup replied, placing his demands on the table straight away. Clearly he was eager to be done with the mess too.

"Alright. How about this, you give them the hostages, and you've got free passage through NCR territory on your way back to Red Rock Canyon. Sound fair?" he asked.

Jessup thought about it. "I can't believe I'm doing this, but all right, the hostages can go. The NCR had better keep its end of the deal, though," he warned.

"The guy in charge here seems reasonable. Call it my last favour to my old tribe," Courier Six said, turning to walk for the door.

"Here," Jessup called, hefting a small object toward him. Catching it, Six fumbled it a moment and then caught it in the other hand. A lighter, heavily engraved and silver.

"A souvenir for you. It's Benny's lighter. Shove it up his ass when you catch up with him."

Six spared a glance back at Jessup and wondered where his moustached friend from the full moon evening was. Unimportant now, though. "You're not so bad, Jessup. Try not to go killing couriers in the future though. You're downright bad at it," he said with a sarcastic grin, slipping out of the door.

He walked down onto the road and then turned at the intersection, heading back to the gap in the wall, flicking the lighter top as he went. Definitely high up in Vegas then. 'The Chairmen'.

Jessup followed him out after a few moments, and he heard the argument about letting the hostages go. Eventually, though, a woman dressed in an NCR uniform bolted past him at top speed. A glance behind him earned a wave from the man, pacing along at the same speed as the courier.

He stepped back into the side of Boulder City that still retained life, and found himself face to face with Lieutenant Monroe again.

"I'm glad you were able to get my people freed, but there's a new problem. I just got orders to take out the Great Khans, hostages or not," he explained.

The courier shook his head. "No way. They let the hostages go in exchange for safe passage."

Monroe sighed and sat back down, looking at the radio. "My hands are tied. I can't go against orders… can I?"

A spark of rebellion. Clearly orders weren't everything to some in the NCR. "Are you a man of honour, or are you just a tool for enacting orders?" he asked.

"You're right. The Great Khans are free to go," he agreed, saying as much to his soldiers, who moved back.

"An impressive act of mediation," came a third voice, and both Six and the Lieutenant turned to see a man whose most notable feature was his doctor's coat.

On the arm was a tattered cross within a circle. His hair was messy, brown, and over his eyes were a pair of glasses, which he pushed up his narrow nose before letting his hands trail back down to run over each other's fingers.

"Do I know you?" Courier Six asked, a question not normally so earnest.

"Aaron Holmes, and I don't believe we've really met," the man replied, gesturing towards an immensely stereotypical saloon just down the road that had survived the city centre's destruction. The sign above it identified it as 'Big Horn Saloon', complete with a picture of a Bighorner head. "Care to have a drink, on me?"

The courier's eyebrow rose. "You've just admitted to not knowing me," he pointed out. "I'll expect a little more than that to go on."

Aaron chuckled and nodded, as though conceding a point in a debate. "Fair enough. Would it help you if I told you I work with Rachel?" he added with a sly grin.

His eyes were a cloudy dark blue.

"Nope," Six replied bluntly.

This noticeably threw Holmes off balance, and his sly expression promptly dropped to confusion. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you _are _a courier, no?" he asked. "I've seen you before when you visit her, unless I've found a look-alike."

The drifter realised quickly that this could be a lead. Jessup had only helped insofar as dealing with Benny, but this could have something to do with what was before that.

"I'm a courier, yes. Sorry, I've been having a little… memory trouble lately. I'll take you up on the offer of a drink," Six said with a nod, turning back to the lieutenant, who had already moved on to coordinate his own people.

The man named Aaron Holmes looked at him quizzically before moving towards the saloon at his side.

They pushed the doors open and strode in to find the place empty. A few tables littered the room, with a bar counter at the back of the establishment unmanned. A bell rang as they stepped in, and the sound of thunderous footsteps could be heard from a door behind the bar.

It creaked open and the bartender appeared, red-faced, muttering something about the time of night.

While it was getting on in the evening, Six checked his Pip-Boy and noted that this should have been good business hours for any place that sold alcohol. Clearly Boulder City wasn't doing excellent right now.

"Bartender, vodka if you've got any," Aaron said, striding across to find a table. Selecting the one he felt was the least dirty, he slid a chair out and sat down. Six followed suit, pulling out another chair and collapsing into it, reminded again how nice it was to get off his feet after a hard day on the road.

ED-E continued to bob along after him, before deciding to take a rest, lowering itself onto the table and then seemingly powering down a number of systems. It still beeped occasionally, so obviously it wasn't completely deactivated.

"What will you have, my friend?" the doctor asked.

"Nuka cola. I'm not a drinker," the courier replied, heaving a happy sigh as his legs rejoiced.

Holmes chuckled. "Ah, another reason you two must get along. I confess, I have some jealousy toward you, courier," he said, and then leaned back in his chair to look over at the bartender. "If you didn't hear that, a nuka cola for my friend."

"I'd be apologetic if I had the slightest clue just what you were talking about," Six said flatly.

"You and Rachel, courier. Do you really need to make me say it?" Aaron asked, looking somewhat embarrassed.

Courier Six sighed. "Alright, let's start from the beginning. I'll explain…"

When the story was over, Aaron Holmes leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, running his finger around the rim over another vodka shot.

"That's quite a story. Amnesia… that must be quite the mood-killer," he said finally. "I wonder if that means my journey here was a waste of time. The Followers send me down here to talk to the Khans about a peaceful solution, Rachel asks me to keep an eye out for 'the Courier', and I get here to find he's already done my job and has no idea why I should be looking for him."

"This is a very strange day, and I have to say it's been a very strange month in general. I've been murdered, I've killed a surprising amount of escaped convicts, I repaired this guy," he tapped ED-E, who beeped happily, "I've seen Nipton a smouldering pile of shit, and just a few days ago I got rid of a band of Super Mutants from an old building's basement so that a cult of ghouls could go into space."

Aaron laughed. "Ghouls in space? Sounds like an interesting adventure," he said, thinking it was a joke.

The courier shook his head and chuckled. It sounded like one. If he hadn't personally watched the rockets burst off into the atmosphere he'd probably have said it was a complete fabrication himself.

Taking another draft of his nuka cola, he eased back into the seat and let out a satisfied sigh. "So, how much do you know about me? Any information is good information," he asked.

Holmes nodded and leaned forward onto the table, crossing his arms. "I'm one of the Followers of the Apocalypse. We're an organisation of scientists and doctors, mostly. People who are trying to help the Wastelands."

That was all it took for Six's own mind to access what he knew. Yes, the Followers were comprised of people from all walks of life, but they were most notably composed of such scientists and doctors. They, like the Brotherhood, were an organisation dedicated to learning and collecting the knowledge of the Old World, though unlike the technologically zealous Brotherhood, the Followers also consisted of many doctors, and were strong-minded humanitarians. Amongst their organisations they were well known for being helpful figures that cared for junkies attempting to go straight, or the wounded of all creeds. The sort of people who would treat an NCR Ranger only one tent away from treating a Legion Centurion when they'd both injured each other.

They were one of the more intellectual organisations of the world as well: combined, their members had extensive knowledge of all areas of things, such as horticulture, agriculture, advanced physics, several different kinds of medical sciences, and probably one or two rocket scientists made up their number too.

Idealism was commonly seen as their major flaw: they aimed for the absolute best scenario at all times, even when it was an impossibility. In a better world, they'd be a shining example to the Mojave. As it was, preaching peace and love to Legionaries just got a person stabbed, raped, enslaved, crucified, or some mix of all four, not necessarily in a particular order.

"Does that actually have something do with me, or are you just framing the situation?" the courier asked curiously.

Holmes chuckled. "You have a habit of stopping by a specific outpost of ours. I haven't been around that long, but it's clear enough that it's because of one of our members, and not just frequent deliveries," he explained.

"Rachel," Six said, trying to jumpstart his memory.

"She asked me to keep an eye out for you. Your visits aren't well-scheduled, what with all the wandering you do," the Follower replied. "She asked me to tell you she's moved to Freeside. That was quite a while ago, though."

It still meant nothing to him. He could take a few guesses though. "So Rachel and I are… together?" he asked.

Aaron's mouth twitched into some strange kind of smile that contained both pity and a few hints of condescension. "She'd like to think so," he said cryptically. To the pre-Benny Courier Six it probably meant something too. This one was just confused.

"Have I been unfaithful? Disrespectful? Tell me I wasn't an abusive partner," he pressed, leaning over the table.

Now he was laughing. A man with information on his past, and he was _laughing_. Six could have punched him.

"Nothing so bad," Aaron replied. "I hope," he added, pausing and placing his chin in his hand.

"Which means?" the drifter demanded, getting impatient with the man's ability to keep things just out of reach.

"From what I understand, you're distant. Wandering wastelander, aloof, probably a dark and edgy past. Honestly it all seemed a bit cliché to me. Like you were trying to be the Vault Dweller," he conceded, shrugging.

Disappointing. He already knew his past was a mystery, but he'd advertised it as such recently? What a pain in the ass. "Great. So Rachel's in Freeside. Good thing I'm heading that way," Courier Six concluded.

"Ah yes. Going after the snake from Vegas. You never told me his name," Holmes pointed out.

"Benny, for what it's worth," the wanderer replied. He was glad he did.

Aaron's eyes immediately widened. "_Benny!_"

Stunned by the reaction, the wanderer simply nodded and leaned back, taking a sip from his bottle of cola.

"Benny, the kingpin of The Tops. Benny, leader of the Chairmen. Benny, one of the most powerful men in New Vegas. That's the man you're hunting?"

"Does he wear a gaudy checkered suit?"

"Mars' blood," Aaron breathed and slumped in his chair. "The very same."

The courier's eyebrow rose. "'Mars' blood'? Really?" he questioned.

Holmes shook his head. "Swearing from the Legion. Usually considered rather offensive. Pretty sure people have been crucified for using it," he explained.

"Where'd you pick it up?"

Holmes took a moment to down another shot of vodka, and the way his face warped told Six it'd be his last one for the evening. "I met a Frumentarius once. Rather impressive man. Strong grasp of history, very cunning. Either way, he'd been sent to check up on the Followers of the Apocalypse. He made his role no secret, and taught me some of the Legion's culture. I must say, it was… interesting," he further elaborated.

"I see," the courier said with a nod. "So you started swearing in Legion tongue after that?"

"When in Rome," Holmes said, followed by a loud laugh. "Or rather, when away from Rome. If I can get away with saying it here, then I might as well make the most of it before the Legion marches across the Dam and forbids it!"

"The New Californians seem to be doing everything they can to hold them off," the drifter pointed out.

Aaron shook his head. "No, they're doing everything they want to hold them off," he clarified. "Of what I've seen, the NCR has a tendency towards the wills and desires of the individual. Very few care for the ideals of their flag enough to actually strive towards them as a collective."

"Compared to the Legion, the NCR are shining knights," the courier stated. "They're rough around the edges, but on my way up here I passed through a town that had been completely sacked. The inhabitants had been crucified and burned alive. The luckiest man in town had gone crazy. You wanna tell me they're better than the NCR?"

Aaron chuckled darkly, and shook his head. "Nipton was a hell-hole already… but you're right. No town deserves that kind of fate."

Courier Six finished his bottle, slipping the cap into one of his duster's many pockets.

For a few moments both sat quietly, not noticing the passage of time. Aaron's eyes shifted over to ED-E, still sitting on the table quietly.

"That floating eye of yours is a little odd, isn't it?" he commented.

"ED-E?" Six thought. "I suppose. Found it damaged in Primm. Didn't take a lot of fixing up, and the little thing's been following me ever since."

"I can't say I'm fond of it," Aaron concluded. "Something like that probably records things. It could be transmitting everything you do to someone for any number of reasons."

A string of beeps flowed from ED-E in rapid succession, and Six was sure the little machine was rather indignantly denying the accusation.

"It's a chance I'll take," the courier replied. "This little bot's been a big help already. He's a big flying backpack with a laser gun."

Aaron looked at him with amusement. "It's a 'he' now, is it?" he wondered.

Six looked down at the metal orb on the table, and reached out to pat it affectionately. "ED-E isn't really a girl's name, now is it?" he said.

ED-E let out another string of beeps and fell silent again.

Shaking his head, the Follower of the Apocalypse replied, "I don't trust robots. As far as I'm concerned they're just another symptom of the Old World and what it led to."

"Well we'll see. Somehow I don't think ED-E's going to go activating anything like the Old World did, now are you?" the courier chuckled.

ED-E let another series of beeps flow forth, quieter this time.

"Well, I think it's time I turn in for the evening. I'd accompany you in the morning, courier, but I'm on my way further southeast come morning's light. Aside from the situation with the Great Khans, I'm providing a little bit of extra support to Camp Forlorn Hope," Aaron said finally.

"You're going alone?" the drifter wondered.

Aaron chuckled, climbing out of his seat and taking his vodka bottle with him, placing it on the counter for the bartender, who had already fallen asleep, to hold onto. "The Followers accept knowledge of all kinds. Mine happens to be in weapons technology," he said proudly. "The smooth operation of a firearm is important, but I've found a lot of knowledge both by cracking things open and by simple reading."

He reached into his coat and produced a curious handgun. Seemingly quite ordinary, it followed the shape of a traditional pistol, and was not altogether dissimilar from that gun Six himself used, but it was differentiated by a small pair of copper tubes on either side running half the length of the barrel, with a small green bar set into the metallic grey of the rest of the weapon underneath it.

The courier drew his own weapon for contrast, and in the back of his mind it was also instinct telling him that weapons drawn always drew more from their holsters.

"No need to worry, courier, I'm just showing off," Aaron chuckled. "A glock 86 plasma pistol. It will be plenty enough to keep me alive on the road."

The wanderer couldn't dispute the logic in that. He'd stayed alive with little more than a handgun or two so far. "Thank you, Aaron Holmes," he said. "For giving me a shred of my past."

Aaron chuckled and shook his head. "Now, now, courier, no need to thank me. Talk is cheap, and in this case the information is free. I fear, though, that you may not be altogether happy with what you find at the end of this road of yours," he said, another cryptic hint at what awaited him.

"Explain," the courier pushed.

"I hope you find Benny, and Rachel. I hope you won't judge her too harshly when you do," Holmes said, pushing through the door and into the night, leaving Six once again alone with ED-E, pondering his past.

_~Soft-Play: To intentionally go easy on a player or group of players despite this bias affecting how the game plays out. Looked down upon in most establishments, and can result in penalties to the involved parties._


	12. Eleventh Hand: Pocket Pair

For this one we've got a chunk of information on the Brotherhood of Steel, for obvious reasons. Besides looking like effective story padding, I'm trying to write a story that's accessible to people who have never actually played New Vegas or even Fallout in general, which is why some fans who know the ins and outs might think I'm overexplaining.

Seems silly, thinking about it, because how many people are going to read this without knowing about Fallout first? Maybe I should branch out, try putting it up on some other sites for new viewpoints.

But I digress. If you're reading, give me a review! You have no idea (well, some of you might) just how motivating it is to get three reviews instead of one. The more I get, the faster and more driven I am to write plenty, and if you're enjoying the story I guarantee that plus will carry over to you too!

Finally: Fus Ro Dah!

That ought to explain pretty much everything about what my spare time's been dedicated to these days. Haven't had a good proper swords and dragons game to play in too long I fear.

On with the chapter:

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eleventh Hand – Pocket Pair<strong>_

_December, 2280_

The wound was infected. Of course it was: I'd ignored it for weeks, just letting it deal with itself. It'd either kill me or it wouldn't.

After enough time passed, enough dust filtered into the wound and enough time spent simply telling my body to get over it or give in to it, it'd finally been unable to stave off infection any longer.

Rather disgustingly, I think I was glad. Finally, something brutal enough to keep me from walking any further.

I'd made it to the Outer Vegas area, the maze of dilapidated buildings stretching on for hours of walking, even in good condition.

There was a food stop up the road north. One of the men there had seen me on my way towards him, and he'd noticed the infected skin clear as day. I wasn't concealing it; it was stark there where the fabric had been torn open along with the flesh.

He'd started towards me, the concern clear as day in his face. A kind man, who'd have been willing to help a person, would they as much as accept it.

I'd promptly lurched off to the east and ignored him and his calls promising help for the wound if I'd slow down long enough for him to reach me.

So I wanted death. My wound was a ticket to finally cashing out. Who wants to live forever, right?

Not me. Nope, I already felt like I'd lived through enough. Made the wrong choices, been in the wrong places. Been in the right places at the wrong times.

Yet I'd never stopped wandering, and I'd never had it in me to just take the simple way out. I had a gun; I knew how to point it. Not once had I ever just aimed it at my head.

Guess it was just too easy doing it that way. Or too… I don't know. Didn't seem right for it to end by my own hand. Felt better if the Mojave did it.

Honestly, I was surprised it'd taken so damn long, but then I hadn't just laid down and taken it. It'd baited it at every turn, challenged it to best me, but I'd never given it the clear shot for the killing blow. It had to work for my life, and it certainly did just that.

The pain was a thick, dull ache in my side now, and it was starting to blur my vision. A few more hours and the lights would go out.

One less courier, a few less packages… a few messages nobody else would ever receive.

I swayed and slammed into the ancient train beside me with a loud bang. It disoriented me enough to trip on the tracks and collapse into the dust. As good a place as any.

I pulled myself back and grimaced as the wound seared with pain. What a way to die. But I'd made the choice without hesitation, and even if I died here I'd outlived the Deathclaw by at least two weeks.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled a bottle of whiskey from within that thankfully hadn't shattered when I'd crashed into the train. There was a sort of echo, like someone yelling to me as I was underwater.

I ripped the cork out with what little strength I had. My arms were starting to shake now. Soon now, very soon. I poured the contents of the bottle down my throat. Didn't even get half of it before my trembling hands spasmed and it fell uselessly in the dirt beside me.

I passed out to the sound of a woman yelling in panic, and let death reach for me.

_~ The Ultra-Luxe: Live life in the lap of luxury. ~_

_1st November, 2281_

"So, what brings you here?"

"Just rolling along on my spurs. Looks like I might make it to New Vegas after all."

"Isn't it funny how we keep running into each other?"

Victor was silent for a moment. "Seeing how this is the only road around, I'd be a sight more surprised if we didn't run into each other from time to time," he said eventually, the same good-natured tone in all his speech.

"So, I suppose you must know what happened at Boulder City then?" the courier asked, crossing his arms.

"Yup. Guess it's just down to you and fancy-pants," Victor replied with what might have been a nod. "I wouldn't worry about him – he looked all hat and no cattle if you ask me."

Six's eyes narrowed.

The 188 Trading Post was a collection of merchants who had pooled resources at an old double overpass bridge and set up shop. A chunk of bus had been cut up and turned into something of a diner, an old camping caravan was filled with mattresses for a place to sleep, and a few tents had been erected around the bridge.

The name came from its location: highway 95 ran underneath an overpass, both a part of highway 93 that had been split into two bridges, one for vehicles and the one he and Victor were on, for pedestrians. Together, the number added up to 188, and with Powder Gangers forcing unfortunate folks out of their homes and the Long 15 cut off around Sloan, highway 95 had become prime travelling expanse. Not that one courier wandering up it would have been able to tell the difference between dead and hectic.

Since the problems blocking off the NCR's traditional road north traffic over the bridge had been good, and a lot of them were tourists on their way to Vegas to spend large, which usually meant a bit of generous spending on the way.

The 188 had been growing prosperous from the situations further west that had driven Cassidy and Morgan mad.

"I don't like this, Victor. Why are you here?" Six demanded, rephrasing his question to be considerably more blunt.

"Now, now, it ain't my fault that Dorothy and the Tin Man happened to be on the same yellow-striped road, is it?" Victor wondered, his cowboy face grinning like nothing in the world would faze him.

The wanderer wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that. Who the hell was Dorothy? "Are you calling me a girl, tin man?" he said finally, not understanding whatever Victor was referencing.

"I like you friend. Have I mentioned that?" the robot responded rather unhelpfully.

Six relented. The robot would keep following him no matter what he tried, and he'd just have to reach the end of his road to find out whether or not it'd end with the robot that saved him stabbing him in the back over something else.

"I'll see you again soon, I'm sure," he said, nodded and turning from the robot to walk away.

"Look me up when you get to Vegas! I'll buy the first round!" Victor called after him happily, as though the drifter's suspicions were completely unfounded.

ED-E spurted a line of beeps in the Securitron's direction that Six assumed must have shared his suspicion, before following him.

Victor, in turn, pivoted and started rolling away. Robot and courier moved in opposite directions and left the bridge they were on. Six stepped over to the makeshift cafeteria and took a seat.

A trio of three other travellers were leant over another table speaking in hushed voices and enthusiastically ripping into their food. A couple accompanied by a mercenary or bodyguard of some kind, by the looks of it.

Further back, seated in the corner with his eyes out over the desert hills was a man more akin to Six, wearing metal armour. An ancient motorcycle helmet sat on his table beside some kind of machine gun. A scavenger maybe, or another mercenary.

"Welcome to the 188 Slop & Shop. Like our slogan says; 'It's better than nothing'," said a woman dressed in the typical attire of a merchant; a thick vest absolutely covered in pockets for currencies, goods, and the occasional explosive.

"Howdy," Six said with half a grin. "Let me see the menu?"

The woman reached for a scrap of canvas that had come off one of the tents and had food and prices scrawled on it. Far from impressive, but their slogan was perfectly true.

After ordering, Six reviewed his stock of caps, and made a mental note to collect more off any raiders he killed in future. Even some gecko hides tanned over a campfire could be sold for a pretty bottle cap.

"Get a lot through here?" the drifter asked as the woman returned with something resembling a steak, composed of meat excavated from a gecko.

"It's better than you might think," the woman said happily. "Troops move back and forth on 93 all the time, and 95 is how NCR folks come and go from Vegas. No shortage of customers… so long as the Legion raids south of here don't get worse, anyways."

Six reviewed the map on his Pip-Boy as he ate. East of Novac was the town of Nelson, where according to Mr. New Vegas the Legion had attacked and devoured the town, flying the flag of their golden bull on its bloody red field.

Given what he'd seen in Nipton, it was fair to say that the disturbing and effective military monsters were steadily eating away at the Mojave, despite NCR's efforts.

He leaned back and sighed, chewing another mouthful of gecko steak. For all the irritation the geckos themselves where, cooked right they were pretty damn good. A second mental note, adding to the first: hunt gecko more often. Hides sell well and the meat's not bad.

"Hey."

Another female, this one wearing a nondescript getup of brown cloth that more or less abolished all hint of shape, complete with a hood that looked like it'd been made out of a sack. With the rather uninteresting nature of most of her clothes, it was extremely hard not to notice that one hand was covered by a rather chunky gauntlet. At its base there was a ring of pistons, and over her knuckles he could see a small pressure pad with wires hooking back along the fingers.

"You mind?" she asked, sitting down in the seat opposite the courier.

"Evidently not," Six replied, returning his attention to this woman. A little of her dark hair was visible before the hood obscured it, pulled back and probably bound.

She chuckled and promptly helped herself to a slice of steak he'd cut off.

His turn to laugh. "I don't think you quite understand how this works. First I ask you if you want lunch, and if you eat it you're expected to sleep with me afterwards," he said, outlining what he recalled to be standard dating protocol.

The woman opened her mouth and hovered over the plate.

"I'll let it slide," the wanderer said quickly.

She leaned back again and swallowed the food. Smiling, she moved a hand forward to shake Six's, then promptly switched to avoid shattering the bones in his arm accidentally.

"Veronica," she introduced happily.

"Uh… Courier," the wanderer replied after a moment's thought.

Veronica cocked an eyebrow and looked him up and down. "Courier, huh? I don't like referring to people by title; I got enough of it back home," she said flatly.

"Oh, no, it's not by choice. My name's Courier Six," he replied with an affable smile.

"Really? That's a little weird. You know, at least insofar as your average guy being called something like 'Dave'. Creative parents?" Veronica wondered with another chuckle.

The courier shrugged. "Dunno. Amnesia case. 'Courier Six' is the closest I've got to a name," he explained.

"Oh, wow," Veronica breathed, looking at him.

They stayed silent for a long while as Six ate and Veronica thought about what to say next. Finally, she decided to explore what little past Courier Six had.

"No offence, but you look like you've travelled a long way down some bad roads. Where'd you come from?"

The courier grinned darkly. "The grave," he said huskily.

"Huh. Well in that case I take it back. You look pretty good, given the circumstances."

"I feel surprisingly good for having a hole in the head," Six admitted.

Veronica shook his hand a second time. "Well, welcome, then. I'm Veronica, I live in a hole in the ground," she reintroduced.

"Makes sense," Courier Six said, ripping another chunk off his steak and chewing it.

"Well, a bunker if you want to get technical. I think it sounds more interesting my way. But I'm not there much anymore. I'm usually out here picking up food and supplies for my family. Whatever they need," she explained better, eyeing up the courier's steak again.

"And they need quarter of a gecko steak?" the courier asked.

"No, I do," Veronica said, smiling and putting on a sweet voice.

Sighing, Six pushed the plate towards her, taking one last slice for himself as it went to its new owner. "You don't even have to sleep with me," he promised.

"Woo!" Veronica exclaimed, digging in.

"So, you just leave your family sitting in a bunker, huh? Sounds like fun."

"Yeah. I'm not worried. They can handle themselves. But somebody has to get the groceries, know what I mean?" she said between mouthfuls. "And actually these days I think they'd rather have me out here anyway. But that's a whole other story."

The courier laughed and looked at her. "Now why would anyone want to get rid of you? You're like a talking dog. Plenty of personality, begging for leftover food, shows up without being invited…"

"Did you just call me a bitch?" Veronica asked offhand, before shoving the last of the steak into her mouth.

"No I… him, I guess I did. What're you gonna do about it?" Six said, grinning again.

"Maybe I'll sleep with you," she warned, toting a hand clad in a massive gauntlet. "I'm given to understanding that bestiality is frowned upon, and I bet you'd be really put out if it was forced."

"Down, girl!" the courier commanded before they both burst into laughter.

Some humour was a welcome trait in a wasteland where death could be ten minutes down the road, and this quirky woman seemed to have plenty of it. For whatever reason she'd decided to sit down and talk to him, Six was glad.

"So, listen, can I ask you something on the level?" Veronica said eventually.

"Go ahead."

"I had a run-in with this group calling themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. Pretty strange bunch. Do you know anything about them?" she asked.

Six's brow furrowed. There were already pieces of information on them in his head. Powerful, iconic. Fans of laser beams.

"From what I recall, they're only an issue if you're carrying any kind of tech on you," he summarised. Yes, it was coming back. Their ways were some odd attempt at safeguarding mankind from itself by confiscating all the advanced technology so that it couldn't be used to enact unspeakable horrors, like the Old World did. Didn't stop the Brotherhood themselves from using the stuff, mind.

"Well that shouldn't be a problem for me. I can't afford anything like that," Veronica said wistfully. "Hey, so where are you headed, anyway?"

Now it made more sense. "Vegas. Paying a visit to the Strip."

"Oooh. Very exciting. Gonna strike it rich, huh? I'll be honest, you're the first person I've run across out here that looks like he can really handle himself," Veronica said.

"What about the dude in the armour over there?" Six pointed out, gesturing to the man in with the bike helmet.

"Him? He's all talk. Nightstalkers would tear him to pieces," the woman said with a small amount of sympathy.

"Alright then," the drifter shrugged.

"There are places I've never been to that'd be too dangerous for just me. What do you think? Maybe we could travel together, help each other out," she proposed.

ED-E beeped, and Six patted the little metal ball. "I'm not getting rid of you, ED-E." He turned back to Veronica. "What about your family?"

"Like I said, they can handle themselves. And I'm not the only one getting supplies for them. It's a big family," she stated, somewhat suspiciously. Then again, maybe spending so much time followed by Victor had made Six edgy.

"Alright," he agreed. "You don't look like much, but why not? I could use someone I can actually understand."

"Heh. Good. That's the look I was going for. Trust me on this one, though. You'll be glad you brought me along," she said happily.

"I'm gonna go check out the underpass, so if you've got anything to finish with here or any stuff to grab, we'll head off in a little while," Six briefed, standing up and stretching his legs.

"Gotcha," Veronica said, doing the same and smiling.

They both went their separate ways, just as he and Victor did, though this time it was out opposite ends of a scrapped bus.

The courier descended the slope that built up around the overpass and stepped into the shadows underneath it.

Clearly it was a place made for the shadier aspects of business, and in that nature the 188 had become a surprisingly fitting trading post. A caravan merchant was sitting against the cracked concrete wall that rose up to meet the bridge above him speaking to a mercenary whom he'd hired for protection in a hushed town. Standing nearby was his pack Brahmin, loaded with bags of supplies and the merchant's various wares.

A few broken cars had been stacked at one end, and lay rusted on top of each other providing cover underneath the highway bridge to a small collection of men who seemed to have taken up a semi-permanent residence in the area.

Sitting back into a recess in the wall was a young boy wearing an odd piece of headgear. Some kind of metal halo fastened around his cranium. He was surrounded by a host of junk, a baby carrier with a teddy bear stuck inside it, a school chalk board with no chalk to write on it, a picture frame whose window into the past had decayed beyond recognition well over a century ago, a suitcase, a garden gnome, and more. Hanging behind him on the wall was the flag of America, the great body of ideology and will that lay dead long ago; a massive, all-encompassing corpse humanity had left behind two centuries ago, yet continued to stand in its shadow, living in the future born of its actions, still clinging to the tattered shreds of its hide they'd torn from the limp body as they fled into the Vaults or their individual shelters to await the day the violence of nuclear war burnt out and gave in.

My, wasn't he thinking philosophically today?

"Hello sir, I hope you're doing fine today," the young boy said as Six stared at the flag, transfixed by his own views, which extended back no further than a month.

The drifter looked down at him and blinked. "Hey, kid. You live with one of these merchants?" he asked, making small talk.

"I don't have a mama or papa anymore," the kid explained, though the courier was impressed that the young boy could say it without sorrow. "I see them sometimes when I take off my medicine, but they can't stay. I'm pretty used to being on my own."

The odd child had piqued his interest. "Medicine, huh? That's the thing on your head?"

He nodded. "You see, I don't sell things, sir. I sell thoughts."

"So what about all the junk behind you?" Six wondered, his gaze sweeping over the small mountain of books the child had accumulated. There was a wad of bills from the Old World there too, and an ancient camera.

"That's not junk," the boy stated solidly. "That's other people's thoughts. People had to think to make them, and the thoughts got stuck inside."

A test subject for something, maybe? The 'medicine' on his head wasn't everyday technology. Something that the Brotherhood would probably want, as he and Veronica discussed.

"I need other people's thoughts to fill my head when I'm not thinking myself. Otherwise it's… kind of empty," the kid went on to explain.

"And you… sell these thoughts?"

"I can take off my medicine and do some thinking. People say it's real interesting. I don't know, because I never hear it. Some people say it's a gift. Other people say it's the kind of thinking anyone could do if they watched more than they talked. I don't know which is true. I see a lot. I think a lot. There's a lot to hear through the 188, too. Maybe that accounts for all the thinking."

The drifter thought for a while, looking at the collection of 'thoughts' surrounding the young boy. Whatever was wrong with him, he seemed to have turned a business out of it. And he was without parents, if his story was to be believed. He didn't have much left, but Courier Six decided to help the boy out.

"Alright, kid. 'Penny for your thoughts', as they say," he said, drawing one of his nuka caps from his pocket and flicking it down to the young boy.

"Great! What do you want me to think about? I can think about 'You', 'Here'… or 'Everywhere'. What do you want?" he wondered.

If the kid really had powers, maybe it'd be worth learning about "me," he decided.

"Okay," the boy nodded. "Let me take off my medicine…"

He pulled the strange device off his head and scrunched his face up as he concentrated. The result was nearly instant. Suddenly his facial muscles slackened, and he stared straight at Six without blinking.

"Your face does the thinking. Two to the skull – yet one gets up. Odds are against you… but they're just numbers after the two-to-one. You're playing the hand you've been dealt, but you don't let it rest, you shuffle and stack, and gamble… a gamble that may pay off? But how?"

The courier stared back at the young boy. 'Two to the skull'. There's no way the news had outrun him. The radio broadcast just said shot in the head, and even then pegging him as that courier would have been a hell of a guess.

The boy leaned back, and his voice seemed to drop an octave. "_Forecast: Rapidly changing conditions._"

"Well… hell," the wanderer said after a while. That was some kind of kid.

"A lot of thinking," the Forecaster said, slipping his medicine back onto his head. It hugged it protectively, keeping the thoughts from getting out – and in. "Most of it in your face, it's almost shouting at me. Sorry if I said anything weird."

Six shook his head. "No, not at all. That was… pretty cool."

"Thanks," the kid said, smiling.

'Rapidly changing conditions'. Yes… one could call them that. Apparently they'd continue to change. Of course they would. He was marching into New Vegas, a Pre-War city of sin that formed a bright, shining trophy to everything in the Mojave. The only place considered as valuable was Hoover Dam, and in many ways that was just a bridge to Vegas, for both East and West.

It was a city from the Old World, a surviving cell of a dead organism, seemingly impossible for the hell of radiation and death that fell from the sky yet staunch and blinding in the long night after the world's death, as if roaring a visual defiance at the end of the world. It was humanity, only a shard of what was once there, but still blazing brightly, alive with vice and sin, industrious and scheming; promising things to all those it met but fulfilling few.

He wondered if Vegas would ever die. It has survived Armageddon. What could Caesar's Legion or the New California Republic throw at it that could rival such destruction?

Between the two overpass bridges the sky was blue with wisps of cloud. It was always so blue here. Even when debris still reigned, grey in the atmosphere to so many others, it was blue over the Mojave. Blue over Hoover Dam. Blue over the scorched remains of Nipton. Blue over the scrap metal rangers shaking hands in treaty at the NCR's Mojave outpost.

Blue over New Vegas, and that grand tower that rose out of the city like a beacon.

It had been watching him the night he died, and it had watched him walk down the Long 15 past Primm, and re-emerged from the rock and sand as he travelled up Highway 95.

"Thanks, kid. I'll see ya around," Six said absent-mindedly, giving the young boy a nod and then turning to walk down toward the stack of cars.

Leaning up against it, smoking a cigarette was a man in a thick leather vest, an entire pack of some Old World brand kept perched in his carefully rolled up white sleeve.

"Hey there," Six offered, hoping to spend what he had left on a weapon; behind the man, guarded by two men holding guns, were a number of stacked footlocker, around which was a generous selection of ammunition.

If this wasn't an arms dealer, then Six was Sunny Smiles' twin sister.

"Is there some reason I should be talking to you?" the man asked bluntly, scratching his short, messy brown hair.

"Sure there is. I wanna buy," Six stated enthusiastically. That gun from his father was all well and good, but it was a revolver, and he needed something with distance.

"Am I selling? Yes. Am I selling to you? No. Sorry to hurt your feelings, but you're small time. Move along," the man replied bluntly, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.

"Oh come on," the courier sighed. "I want to fire some bullets and kill some things. Why on earth would you want to stop me?"

"There's usually a gun merchant hanging around topside. I'm sure she'll take care of you," the arms merchant continued without a shred of interest.

"Look, the cases are right there, how hard could it be to take a shotgun or a rifle out and pass it to me for a fair price?" the courier pressed.

The man lost his temper, flinging the cigarette into the ground and stamping it out. "Do I look like a fucking arms caravan to you?" he demanded, stepping forward until he was directly in the courier's face, glaring up at him from his slightly shorter stature. "Do you think the Gun Runners keep the NCR military supplied by carrying weapons and ammo from the Boneyard out here by the armload? Get a clue. We have caravans. We deal in bulk."

Six glared down at the arrogant merchant before him and fought the urge to just punch him in the face and walk away. A merchant speaking so condescendingly to a customer and refusing service on the basis that he wouldn't buy an entire locker chock full of weaponry.

Asshole.

They continued staring at each other for some time. After a certain point, Six's stubborn will simply refused to be the first to turn around and walk away, and the merchant was clearly determined to beat this customer into submission with nothing but an iron gaze and a few harsh words of criticism.

"Leave him to me," he heard behind him. The merchant's gaze slide over his shoulder, but better yet it was interrupted by a blink.

Courier Six wins the staring contest!

He allowed himself to turn as well, and found Veronica smiling with a small sack slung over her shoulder.

"You again?" the merchant sighed with disdain.

Veronica happily tapped the courier on the shoulder. "You head on up, I'll follow you," she said with a smile.

Six did as he was told with a shrug, making his way back up to the overpass. Stretching his legs for the walk ahead, he looked towards his destination, the city of New Vegas, and then turned and looked back down the road he'd walked. Heat waves rose off the deteriorating asphalt, distorting the air above the road.

A billboard nearby had managed to survive this long and showcased mighty Hoover Dam with an artillery cannon resting over the massive concrete wall. Someone had climbed up there at some point and spray-painted "NCR RULE!" in white on it.

Well, everyone had an opinion. Some were just louder than others. And some were painted on billboards.

It wasn't long before Veronica returned holding a hunting rifle and a belt to slot it on. "Consider it a token of good faith," she said, slinging it over to him.

He caught it and stared at it delightedly. "How'd you do it?"

"You'd be surprised how much more convincing you are when you can shatter concrete with a punch," she said sweetly, before kneeling and smashing the gauntlet into the road, sending fissures through it and dislodging shards around the epicentre of her newly crafted fault line.

The drifter pulled the belt on, slinging it over his shoulder and happily drawing the rifle over his left shoulder with his right hand, steadying the barrel with his left and looking down the sights. A pistol was one thing; a weapon of finesse and quiet grace. A rifle was quite another, a beast of precision, stark beauty that only roared once, yet definitively.

"I'm dangerously close to hugging you," he warned.

"Aww. I haven't been hugged in years," Veronica reminisced, watching his almost childish glee at being given the new toy.

"Keep this up and you'll end up getting hugged weekly," he replied with a smile. "Wait, I think I might be married. Bi-weekly."

"Oho, family man," Veronica giggled as they both set off down the road, their feet falling out of rhythm.

All the while ED-E remained a silent companion, making no noise and simply bobbing along beside them, listening to their conversation.

Family man? No. That whole concept just made him feel empty and sad. It made him feel like an injured animal, separated from its young; confused, furious, hurt…

Get that feeling out. Push it out of his mind and just get rid of it. He didn't want it.

"So, what were you after specifically?" he asked, changing the subject. "You said you wanted to travel, but what's the goal there?"

"Oh, nowhere in particular, really," Veronica admitted, keeping pace with ease. "Just hoping to see more of the world. Looking for a fresh perspective."

"Oh yeah?"

"I want to see how different groups have adapted to survive in the Mojave. See if there's something I can learn from," she explained.

Six chuckled. "You sound like a Follower of the Apocalypse," he said, looking at her across his shoulder.

She laughed. "Not quite," was the reply.

They were both silent for a while after that, the only sound their feet as they steadily moved towards the Vegas outskirts.

Eventually the woman spoke again. "One thing you should know, before we go too far, though," she began.

"Hmm?" the courier mumbled.

"I asked you about the Brotherhood because I'm one of them," she admitted.

The wanderer kept walking, but turned and looked at her hard. "H-uh."

"I know, I know. But I had to know how you'd react when I told you," she defended, shrugging sheepishly. "We've made a lot of enemies."

"From what I recall, that's mostly their fault," the wanderer replied flatly.

Veronica fell silent, looking at the ground. Six was still walking.

Eventually she stopped. He only progressed a few steps before turning and looking back at her. "You still okay bringing me along?" she asked.

"Well, the Brotherhood's pretty militant as far as cults go, so between that and the rather impressive machinery on your hand, I think I can safely say you've got some combat experience," the courier surmised.

"I'm great at punching people," she offered. "I'm not gonna lie. It's a gift."

Six's expression immediately softened. "See, that attitude right there is just the kind of thing that gets you the job. Long as you've got my back, you're plenty welcome to travel with me. Besides, what kind of person would I be if I just used you to get me a shiny new rifle and then left you eating other people's food at the overpass?"

Veronica was visibly perkier for Six's acceptance. "Well, thanks for taking a chance on a naïve young girl from California with stars in her eyes and a pneumatic gauntlet on her hand!" she expressed cheerily, resuming her walk alongside the courier with more spring in her step.

The attitude was infectious, and Six found himself treading lighter too. Even ED-E seemed to bob a little more freely. Another line of beeping escaped the metal sphere, and Six laughed aloud at the situation.

Two hundred years hence, hell had fallen from the skies and scorched humanities greatest achievements away. Now an army bearing the sigil of a bear had reached out to place its paw over the Mojave and sent its hordes of soldiers to enforce its new territory. Across the river, a bull flanked by new Romans had come charging across the concrete bridge to gore the bear. The two had been fighting for more than four years now. Fortunes continued to roll across the Strip like tumbleweeds. Scheming Vegas lords murdered couriers over packages they didn't understand.

Yet amidst all that, here was an impossible man, living after his own death, striding happily and freely down the road into sin city flanked by a metal ball covered in antennae and prone to spouting music from movies centuries old on one side, and a woman wearing what amounted to a potato sack belonging to a technological cult of hyper-militant has-beens with a massive power gauntlet on her hand on the other.

He wondered if life had ever been this strange before the war.

For an enjoyable few hours, Six didn't care that he'd been murdered and still had no idea why.

"Hey, so mind if I ask you a few questions?" the courier asked finally.

"He was dead when I got there!" Veronica blurted.

"Hah," Six replied. "What's it like being in the Brotherhood? I don't think I've ever actually met one of you before. Then again, the whole memory-loss thing makes it hard to tell," he admitted.

"It pays like ass, but it's hard to get other work with my skill set," she replied simply.

"So what exactly do they do? I mean, I know what I've been told, but from an actual member I might get a definitive answer," he proposed.

"Hah, good question. These days it's hard to say," Veronica admitted with a forlorn sigh. "Once upon a time it was about technology. Controlling it so it couldn't destroy us again."

The courier nodded. "A rather noble foundation," he agreed.

"Energy weapons and power armour are usually tops on our list, although I appreciate anything that's vintage," she continued. "But that all seems so limited now."

"What do you mean?"

"We haven't grown or adapted," the Brotherhood of Steel member said, her voice heavy with the disappointment found in that truth. "And now we're stuck in a hole, not carrying out our mission."

"Don't like 'em, huh?" Courier Six asked.

"I know sometimes I sound like I don't. I know," Veronica admitted, looking across Six towards the west. "But there's something that still rings true to me about our code. There's an honour to it. We're protecting people. Even if it's from themselves, it's a good cause."

The drifter stayed silent. There was a quiet passion in the way Veronica spoke, laced with a heavy kind of sadness.

"We just lose sight of the big picture sometimes… treat all our practices with the same sacredness."

"I suppose none of that sacredness extends to actually helping people though, right?" the courier pointed out.

Veronica shook her head. "No, no. We protect people from themselves, and only in the sense that we don't let them have the really good Pre-War toys," she explained. Her jovial tone made the sarcasm brighter, and dulled the disappointment in her as she said it. "And sometimes it's more like we protect ourselves from them and hope to outlive them and become humanity's sole heirs."

"There's no way everyone in the Brotherhood of Steel is like that, surely? You can't be the only one who sees how stupid that all sounds?" Please, somebody notice the sanity lacking in such a failure of an organisation!

"Oh, we've had people go rogue and start helping people. One chapter had a small civil war over it," Veronica said, looking up at the sky and counting the years on her fingers.

"You're kidding."

"We take our isolationism seriously."

"Where do I sign up? What's the membership fee?"

"More sexual favours than I can even count," the 'grocery shopper' said flatly, rubbing her thigh. "I am _still _tired from it."

The courier laughed. "Nice. Brotherhood of Pimps, huh?"

"No, actually, you're born into it," Veronica corrected her story. A small correction, but important nonetheless. "My parents, their parents, so on. When you're young you can choose to leave, but it's home, so most people don't."

"Hard to walk out on family, even when you can't agree with them, huh?"

She nodded, giving a small smile at the thought of 'family'. "We don't take on new members, really. You can do the math on our long-term prospects based on that point. I keep hoping we'll change that," she said wistfully.

Six returned the smile and kept walking. Veronica was happy to keep explaining the Brotherhood to the amnesiac though, adding her own spins and pointing out the flaws in their methods and ideals.

"I'm a procurement specialist. Like I said, it's basically grocery shopping. Except sometimes the groceries are scavenged parts and arcane technology. The elder who brought us to the Mojave, Father Elijah, usually had me looking for these old memory units. But he'd never tell me what they were for," she continued.

The courier at her shoulder remained silent, listening to his new companion with curiosity and intrigue.

"Nowadays I'm usually sent to do business with traders at places like the 188. But sometimes I think it's just to keep me out of everyone's hair."

"You're having fun with this, aren't you?" Courier Six wondered aloud.

"With what?" the young woman wondered, a little confused.

"Finally getting a chance to actually talk about the Brotherhood how you want. Your other company seems to have primarily been either people who won't hear a word against your great code of traditions, or people who won't hear a word about the Brotherhood at all. Now you're getting a chance to really rail against them, and you love it," he observed with a grin.

"I can't help it!" Veronica pouted. "I spent so long figuring out how best to deconstruct them in my head, and now I finally get a chance! It's like waiting months for one of those movie nights at the old drive-ins!"

"I'd wager it's nothing like that, but fair enough," the courier chuckled.

"It's exactly like it," she replied steadfast. "Brotherhood of Steel 2: The Veronica Strikes Back."

They both laughed and kept walking. ED-E silently bobbed along with them, listening to every word.

_~Pocket Pair: A hand in Texas Hold'em, formed when a player has two cards of the same rank in their private hand. Since players are only dealt two cards for their own hand in Texas Hold'em, a pocket hand starts the player off with a strong hand immediately, placing them in a good position to bet._


	13. Twelfth Hand: Brick & Mortar

We open today with what may be the most brutal thing I've ever written, and based on the schedule we're currently moving on, counting a freebie Christmas present for you guys and girls reading, we're going to have the season finale of The Road of the Fool on New Years Eve. Kinda cool.

Anyway, you'll notice that Nightstalkers are portrayed a little differently in Nameless Grave. Why? Because they're treated as more dangerous and more scary than they are in game. Everyone goes "oh no, mutant animals!" but that's nothing new anyway. So I gave them a little extra bite to make people respect 'em a bit more. Hopefully you like the little change.

Other than that, you'll notice that there's been a bit of a time difference between this hand and the last one. The primary reason for that is that Vegas is a big place, and while in the game you can walk from one end to the other in the time it takes to toast bread, the real Mojave and the real Vegas are significantly bigger. Add in the fact that Outer Vegas is a decaying hellhole, and it would take a considerable amount of time to traverse the winding streets without knowing your way.

Justifications aside, read on:

* * *

><p><em><strong>Twelfth Hand – Brick &amp; Mortar<strong>_

_Late 2278_

Fiends. More fucking Fiends.

Drugged up psychopaths shaking down every traveller they could for drugs, the ingredients to make drugs, money to buy drugs, or just for the opportunity to scare people.

That was the very rare best case scenario. In all likelihood they'd go with their default strategy: murder whoever wasn't amongst their number. Sometimes they didn't even bother with that much of a distinction. Anyone still standing after the fact was either running for the hills or a Fiend who was just happy to be part of the killing. Then they'd raid the bodies.

That was the case most of the time.

Too often (once was too often, but this was closer to three times out of every ten) they'd do worse, kidnapping people, injuring them with specific intentions to let them live the rest of their lives with wounds that would never completely heal, or broken limbs that would never heal beyond the capability to painfully hobble.

Those groups who got it worst were dragged away to Fiend lairs across the city. What happened there was a subject no sane human was willing to speculate on, but every now and then a Fiend was recognised as one of people dragged away, needle marks up their arms and necks and a level of sadistic bloodlust that left 'pureborn' Fiends hesitating to follow. And they were the best case scenario of finding yourself in a Fiend lair. No women dragged down into those dark depths were ever seen again.

Sick, twisted human beings that showed just how far humanity could fall into depravity. The Legion's crucifixion would be welcome after the hell Fiends visited on their victims.

I was couriering a package once again, treading through Outer Vegas. The ruined cityscape was quite a thing to see, even when places like the Boneyard were taken into consideration – most of New Vegas was just crumbling architecture and centuries-old buildings that stood lifeless, providing shelter to those who braved their confines, but only to the alert; traps and creatures prowled some of the buildings, eager to catch an unaware traveller off guard for a feast.

The NCR's presence had helped, but it was little of a deterrent to the more dangerous beings hiding within the walls. For them, the presence of a new people and nation just meant more prey. Gun Runners and the Crimson Caravan ensured that bulk shipments of weaponry, food, and other items were always on the way through, and to armed and dangerous thugs like the Great Khans or Fiends it meant hitting those trade routes required a little preparation.

The region was a disaster zone, a maze of dangers.

The kind of place I'd walk willingly. Gladly.

I'd always been a courier who had a sense of adventure – hell; anyone would have to if they wanted to take a job involving travelling the wastes like a courier had to. Beyond that, though, I was one who'd walk roads nobody else was willing to. Dangerous and hard roads. I'd always accepted them with calculation, a confidence in my abilities that told me that while the journey wouldn't be easy, I'd be able to overcome it.

It was a philosophy that never steered me wrong. I'd walked difficult roads, where creatures prowled at night that would have made some mercenaries second guess a job, or roads where the wind could pick a man up and toss him off a cliff-face. I'd been to places where pronouncing something wrong would bring a village of tribals armed with explosives down on your head, and I'd seen the desolate edges of civilisation that stretched on into nobody knows how far of bleak empty earth under corroded grey skies.

But I always held onto my rules and my philosophies.

I'd promised that just because I wandered, it didn't mean I had nowhere to go, or that my life was aimless. I'd promised not to simply die on a fool's errand.

Nowadays I walked that line. Roads other couriers feared to tread were my bread and butter. If someone asked me to courier a message into the heart of a Cazador nest I'd have agreed without even asking how long it'd take to get there. If someone told me to take a message to Caesar himself I'd have walked the road even if that message was spitting in his face.

Many people had called that suicide. I'd just pointed out how many times I'd done a job like that and asked if it'd killed me. Their criticisms usually stumbled at that point.

A scream erupted behind a building a few blocks down. It wasn't much of a decision on whether or not to investigate. People didn't scream like that because a travelling companion had shouted 'boo' while leaping out of the shadows.

I closed the gap between myself and the sound with relative ease, running down the street with my coat trailing along behind me dramatically. As I approached the edge of a hotel whose upper floors had all collapsed through to the ground I could hear someone begging to be left alone. A male, as opposed to the feminine scream that had echoed through the streets.

"Look, there's no need to do this. We'll give you the money, just leave us alone!" the man was begging in a shaky voice.

"Fuck that," came a harsher voice. "Let's just line 'em up and watch their brains explode out the back of their heads!"

A deep voice refined the concept. "We've got a little duct tape. We could see what happens when you duct tape an incendiary grenade to someone's forehead and pull the pin," he proposed, and was met with cruel laughter.

"Please," whimpered a woman. "We've done nothing to you."

"Hush, hush. You don't have to worry. We're not gonna go blowing your head up. In fact, I think from now on you'll be the one doing the blowing," hissed a smooth-voiced man with a clear lining of sadism.

I crept to the edge of the building and peered around. Fiends, exactly as expected. The last one to speak was holding a large military knife dripping red with the blood of one unfortunate victim. His deep voiced friend was the dark skinned man with a bandoleer covered in grenades standing to his left, and the more high-pitched, excitable one was holding a machinegun, twirling it on his finger unconsciously as he stared at their prey. All three were dressed in patchwork rags and were wearing animal skulls on top of their heads like headdresses.

They'd ambushed a travelling band of three, and judging by the facedown body and the Fiend leader's knife, the scream had been in response to an immediate kill.

The two remaining travellers consisted of a woman and a man, neither of them equipped to take on the Fiends and probably banking on the NCR's patrols and the less volatile nature of East Vegas to see them through unharmed.

A bad plan. A stupid plan.

Just like mine.

"Do we have to carry her all the way back to our little sanctuary?" the excitable lad wondered.

"Does seem a long way to take her…" the leader mused, taking a moment to lick some of the blood off his knife.

"Besides, Hunter will probably just claim her and say the next one's ours. I don't wanna haul this bitch back and not even get to use her!" the machinegun toting Fiend pointed out as if he were talking about a new toy the local bully was going to steal before he had a chance to play with it.

I slipped around the corner and started moving towards them. Aside from the two groups in the middle of the street between an apartment building and the collapsed entrance to some novelty store, there was nobody in the street.

The dead body of the traveller who had been killed to the right of the man, wearing a doctor's coat and sitting down where he'd fallen, one leg arched and a hand behind him ready to push him up and get him moving at a moment's notice, while the other arm was across his front in some instinctive self-protection gesture that was meaningless against the kind of weapons the Fiends could subject them to.

I couldn't see the woman behind him clearly, but I could definitely hear her crying, and given the raggedness of it she was shaking uncontrollably too. Show me a woman who wouldn't be in the face of what her life was about to turn into, if it even managed to get that far.

"We could try her now, and then just get rid of her after," the grenade-wearing Fiend suggested with a step forward.

The woman panicked and screamed again, this time a coherent cry for help.

"Shut it!" the Fiend with the gun spat, leaping towards her and kneeling so that his face was in hers. The man's eyes were wide as he jabbered senselessly.

The leader elbowed the twitchy man out of the way, and as I crept closer silently I could hear his low, smooth voice.

"You're a nice looking one, so I'll let you choose which one of us goes first. Don't you think that's a nice little liberty? After all, won't it just make you feel so much better knowing you got to choose just how this'd happen to you? That way it'll be almost like _you _decided the whole thing," he whispered, a disgusting grin enforcing the psychological destruction he was driving through the poor girl's mind.

So caught up in the female, the Fiends hadn't even checked if anyone else was nearby. A sniper could have picked them off if he'd been careful. A burst of machinegun fire aimed above the heads of the two travellers would have ripped them apart. They were terrifying, but far from tactical.

I was approaching with a quicker pace now. The tone of conversation was less debating their next move now, and more about approaching the situation. The leader was adding in as much psychological trauma as he could to the equation.

Recently I'd taken to using more gruesome weapons in my interactions with the scum of the wastes. They weren't pulling any punches, why would I?

A ripper was a small slab of plastic and metal that looked not too dissimilar from a motorcycle handbrake crossed with a torch. At least, the handle did. The blade was an entirely different creature; a miniature chainsaw blade that revved and spun courtesy of the energy cell in the handle and the switch on the side that activated the devious machine. Essentially it was a miniature chainsaw that could be wielded like your typical dagger.

Fiends used them sometimes. I had a habit of killing Fiends wherever I found them. After a little while, chance had dictated that a few of my kills had been holding the dangerous items.

I drew both and started running.

"Hey!" the twitchy Fiend reacted first, but I was already close enough to ignore him as he brought the gun up. His intention was to blast me backwards with a volley of bullets. He managed the volley of bullets, but only because his nerves seized up as a chainsaw knife ripped into his chest and tore him open, eliciting the kind of scream a thousand times worse than what the terrified woman was feeling.

The gun kept firing until the nerves in his hand slackened, courtesy of the second ripper separating it from his arm. It dropped to the ground uselessly – the gun striking the road made more noise than his band of muscle and tissue. I'd learned a few things about human anatomy that made it easier to know where bone was weakest. Get the wrist right and removing a hand was surprisingly easy.

The second Fiend, the dark skinned grenadier, stepped back on instinct as the blood promptly spewed from the stump and the Fiend died screaming in agony with a jagged and bloody hole gashed in his chest and his arm severed.

The leader's eyes widened, and the woman, displaying a speed and judgement I respected immensely, leaned back and brought her leg up, booting him in the chin and sending him stumbling backwards with a yell.

I dragged one ripper across his back, exposing the muscle and blood under his skin without killing him, and lunged into the grenade holding man, who still had yet to react.

As the leader roared in pain I dug both rippers either side of the other's stomach, turning his kidneys into a shredded mess. Not content to stop there, I jerked both upwards, driving upwards until I hit the first of his ribs and jamming the spinning teeth into the bone.

I can't possibly imagine the agony he must have felt. I can't really describe just how good it felt doing it, either.

Drawing them both from their excavation sites, I kicked him backwards and watched the twitching mess of what was once a man tumble backwards.

Hissing and spitting, the last of the Fiends was grunting, wide eyed, and panicking over the man who approached from nowhere and had just subjected his two colleagues to several moments of mind rending agony before blood loss and wounds left them dead. He took a step back, attempting to brandish his knife in front of him like he could still use it.

I took a step forward and the Fiend, formerly dangerously smooth-voiced and perfectly in control of the situation, stumbled backwards and dropped his knife.

"I-I'm sorry," he blabbered.

The two travellers, both still stunned on the ground, watched as the man who had so terrified them began to cry like a child and plead, just as they'd done. Just as he himself had once done years ago, travelling the roads in Outer Vegas as a party of Fiends had ambushed him, debated amongst themselves, and then dragged him back to one of their lairs to send him further into the depths of insanity than even they themselves would dare to tread.

Somewhere deep within him the terrified traveller may still have existed buried beneath layers of agony and thousands of doses of every kind of drug known to man. He was channelling it now, but I didn't believe for a moment I'd really scared the insanity out of such a monster.

He tripped over his own feet as he stumbled back further, and became a mirror image of the man he'd just been threatening; one arm holding him up, one leg scrambling to help him up, his arm across his front to somehow protect him.

"No more!" he begged.

I wasn't listening. I heard enough of his words before I'd crashed into them. Now it was just white noise; crocodile tears. He was a mad dog whimpering pathetically to stop his execution.

I dragged a ripper up the leg that was trying to push him up. He screamed as it dropped to the road and twitched uselessly. Immediately blood poured from the wound. The one across his back had done enough damage, and with this one his body was turning white as paper.

I didn't have long before blood loss took its toll. Seconds at most. So, I needed to make them count.

Flicking one ripper across his torso, I dragged the other along his arm, eliciting further screeches. His eyes were already flickering back into his head, and I growled.

"If you're going anywhere when you die, I want you to tell them the Courier sent you as a message to all the other Fiends down there about what happens when you think you can get away with fucking anyone you please. Because I just fucked you," I spat to what little consciousness was left in him, and then jammed the ripper right where I thought would make the best point, and make his last few moments of life as painful as possible. He didn't even manage to scream as the whirring blade of the miniature chainsaw removed his gender.

I stood up, flicking both of the sadistic weapons off and sliding them into the sheaths I'd fashioned for them on my belt, and started walking back onto the route I'd planned for myself.

"Wait!" the woman called unsteadily, finally finding her footing along with her voice.

I paused.

"You… thank you, but… how could you do that?" she wondered, clearly dazed by my bloodthirsty display. I'd saved her life, but the way I'd done it, I must have looked like just another bloodthirsty raider, in it for the kill.

"It's quite simple, really," I replied casually over my shoulder. "All you need is two rippers and an eye-for-an-eye philosophy."

"But that was… that was disgusting. No human should _ever _have to go through what you put that man through, no matter how evil he is," the girl stated righteously.

I smiled and kept walking. A young girl who still believed in the good in people and that there was an end to how dark mankind could be. It was quietly comforting to know.

"The world's… to call it a bucket of shit would be polite. I'll handle the brutal, bloodcurdling side, and you can deal with the sunnier one. Stay safe."

With that I walked away, with no idea how important that rescue was to my life.

_~ The Vikki & Vance Casino: Be our partners in crime! ~_

_7th November, 2281_

"They've done alright so far. Sure, there've been some hiccups, but you've gotta admit, they're doing what they can."

"Sure, but so is the Legion when you look at it that way. From what I hear, Arizona used to be hell. Now you can walk an unprotected caravan through it without fear."

"You sound like you're for them."

Veronica laughed and shook her head. "Hard to support any civilisation that treats women like Brahmin to be bought and mounted. Then again, it sounds like their soldiers spend as much time mounting each other as the girls, so maybe they kept a little something from the Empire after all," she mused.

Outer Vegas; skeletal, dense maze of buildings. Little had changed over the years, now it had just crumbled away a little more on the outskirts. The edges fell inward, and the heart and organs grew outwards. Eventually there'd be some kind of middle reached where all of Vegas were occupied and maintained, but that would take years.

The courier and his new travelling companion Veronica had a hard time, striding through the ruins of the Old World city on their way to its heart. Veronica's quirks had kept Six in a good mood though, and someone to talk to who didn't just beep back was a welcome addition to his merry travelling band.

While Fiends had once prowled the roads that wound through the great bodies of dead abodes and crumbling hotels, the NCR's presence in the area and arguably stronger hold on the region had tightened the border between Vegas' east and west. The Fiends were now restricted to hunting on the western side of the city.

Theoretically this would demotivate them, but it had just served the same purpose as backing a snarling animal into a corner – they'd redoubled efforts, and travellers anywhere near the west of Vegas paid full price for it.

The dividing line was the McCarran Airfield, now Camp McCarran, an enormous hub of Pre War transport that had once maintained and served as a hub for enormous airships that ferried travellers up into the sky to travel the fastest roads known to man, unbound by the forms of land.

It sounded ridiculous, getting something so massive to fly, but Veronica had told him about them. Naturally, the Brotherhood had records on such technology. They'd probably even helped bury it.

She'd started calling him 'seeker', because of how his sole purpose in life seemed to be finding Benny and going from there. For what it was worth, that basically was his sole purpose in life. The introduction of the woman from the Followers of the Apocalypse, however, had added an additional objective, but Benny came first. Stop your enemies before you rest with allies.

As they'd continued to talk, the 'grocery shopper' had explained Vertibirds: large machines that carried small groups of people and flew using rotor blades and various forms of aerodynamic science Six didn't even try understanding as his newfound friend explained them.

Earlier in the day they'd ended up debating the two warring nations of the Mojave: the NCR and Caesar's Legion. Between what he'd seen of the NCR and what he'd seen at Nipton, Six was far from unclear on his standpoint in NCR's superiority.

Veronica had chuckled, and taken the turn of playing devil's advocate, though she was less about justifying the Legion and more about debating what the NCR didn't do versus what it could and did.

Resources were a large slice of her pie chart – the NCR's consumption rate was considerably higher than its production, and because its population was expanding so quickly, it was constantly having to reach beyond its own borders. That very situation was what caused them to reach into the Mojave, and subsequently find two Pre-War treasures of enormous magnitude: the neon city of New Vegas and the power-producing goliath, Hoover Dam.

Six had fallen silent as they walked, contemplating the new information. He was far from in a position to debate anyway, his memory being what it was, but every point Veronica made was a new point for him to learn.

"So what about the war you mentioned?" he asked finally, changing the subject. It had been mentioned a few times, and Six had a strong suspicion it was the source of Veronica's anti-NCR bias, even if she tried to keep her opinion even.

"What's there to say? The Brotherhood got angry because the NCR wanted to play with their toys. Honestly, the both of them just need a time out," she summed up.

"Which means?" the seeker pressed.

Veronica sighed, clearly not a fan of retelling the events. "Basically, the NCR and Brotherhood couldn't agree on how best to regulate technology around the wastelands. The Brotherhood wanted it to be all locked up for them in their toy box, the NCR wanted to share. So, like mature adults, they went to war."

It was painfully simple. "So what happened to the Brotherhood? People talk about them like they're ghosts now, from what I hear. I've had about one mention every couple of towns, but the war was recent, wasn't it?" he continued.

"No, the war, if you could still call it that, has been going for a long time," Veronica said sadly. "Almost forty years. The Brotherhood, we're strong, we've got weapons you wouldn't believe, and power armour that can withstand a grenade blast as long as we're not standing on top of it when it happens, but the New California Republic… it's huge!"

"Doesn't sound like a very glorious win," the seeker said quietly, startled by just how distraught Veronica was as she remembered.

"It didn't matter how many the Brotherhood managed to beat. No matter what we won, the NCR had so much more to push on us. Our chapter… Father Elijah brought us out into the Mojave searching for technology that could help us. HELIOS One was what we found. To most it was just a solar power plant, but he was convinced there was something more there. When he learned that the NCR had taken the Dam while we were still trying to unlock the secret of HELIOS… he was furious," she continued to explain, seemingly unable to stop herself from elaboration.

Courier Six merely continued to walk beside her, unsure if saying anything would help or hinder.

"Eventually they came for the power plant. Elijah refused to move. He was… obsessed… eventually we were forced to retreat, and he… he was killed in the battle," she finished, her head dropping and her hands furiously rubbing her eyes.

The courier placed an arm on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Behind her quirk, Veronica wasn't as cheerful as she seemed. The poor girl had been through a lot it seemed.

That seemed to bring her back from her depression, and she looked up with a sigh. "They tell us stories, you know. About when the Brotherhood was still relevant. About how the Vault Dweller became one of our members, and how that helped him bring down the Master. About the chapters that went east and changed completely. Elijah once told me he'd heard that the one that went all the way east, to the edge of the world, they did exactly what he'd always wanted us to do. They ended up fighting the Enclave and super mutants at the same time," she said, her eyes forlorn and glassy as she thought about it.

ED-E buzzed loudly, bringing their attention back to the here and now as it began beeping.

"Subject E: diagnosis complete. Begin recording," the metal ball stated in well educated tones.

"You can talk?" Six said incredulously.

"My name is Whitley. I'm a researcher at Adams Air Force base. Until recently I was in charge of the Duraframe reinforcement project for the combat model eyebots," the machine explained.

"Wait, what?"

"I don't think he's talking," Veronica said. "A radio transmission?"

ED-E had paused, and seemed to be looking at the courier for guidance.

"Uh… go on?" he tried.

"Eyebot Duraframe Subject E is both the prototype, and the last functional model in this test group," he continued, bobbing up and down. I was prepared to make several significant upgrades to the machines. However, as the project was cancelled and all Duraframe assets are being diverted to Hellfire Armour, I am sending this model to the Navarro outpost."

"It's a recording," Veronica concluded curiously.

"If you are listening to this log from one of our Enclave outposts in Chicago, give this unit whatever repairs it needs so it can continue to Navarro," ED-E concluded, followed by a string of beeps.

Silence descended over the three travellers as Six and Veronica stared at the 'eyebot'.

"It said Enclave," Veronica said finally.

"So did you. The hell's 'Enclave'?" the drifter wondered.

The Brotherhood scribe shook her head. "An Old World organisation that used to be around. This thing must from be from somewhere they're still alive… wow," she said, still stunned.

"More to you than meets the eye…bot, eh little guy?" Courier Six chuckled, patting the sphere. It beeped happily, and all three resumed their travel.

"When you say 'Old World organisation'…" Six began, but Veronica waved her hand.

"_That _is a kettle of fish for a whole different day of the week," she dismissed.

They continued walking for a while before the wanderer spoke up again. "When you say 'fish'…" he began, and Veronica laughed.

"Swimmy things. They hang out in large amounts of water. If you ask me about water I'll hit you," she said, though Six was fairly certain it was a gamble he could have made without Veronica using her gauntlet hand.

He hoped.

…best not push it.

They kept walking, surprised by the relative safety of passing through the streets of Vegas. Eventually, as it became evening, they started finding patrols of NCR troops pacing through the ruins who simply nodded as they passed, judging them no threat.

A few eyed up ED-E uncomfortably, but otherwise they continued unmolested. Three blocks on and they discovered the reason for the patrols, a chain link fence stretching around a considerably sized section of land that had been repurposed into a farm.

It was an agriculture camp for supplying the NCR personnel stationed around the area, and maybe the locals too, for a price. Six took it in; rows of corn standing out in the open, pushed to mature at any time of year. There was broc flowers too, and even more besides that.

His stomach growled as he thought of all the things on the other side of that fence, and he chuckled, gravitating towards it.

He was so lost in thoughts of what he might be able to cook with what was on the other side of the fence that he was completely taken by surprised when ED-E blasted its fanfare and Veronica yelped, a four-legged form crashing into her.

Instinctively, the machete was in hand, and to her credit Veronica had already recovered. Throwing her hand into the creature's neck on reflex would have kept its grotesque snapping mouth at bay for the average person.

Instead, Veronica's gauntlet smashed into its throat and snapped its neck instantly, shattering the windpipe and spine both. Its heavy form was pushed upwards, and then it collapsed back down on top of her, eliciting a lower yelp of frustration as its heavy form no longer attempted to keep itself up.

Four more were running down the street, following their alpha, or point… thing. Whatever you called the first attacker in a pack of those things.

Most of their bodies looked canine; four paws, fur bounding sort of run. Along the back though they had scales rising in a strip from front to back, and what might have been a dog's tail was covered entirely in scales and twitched as they ran.

The worst part though, was their heads. Some kind of strange mutation, they'd started as coyotes, perhaps, but their heads had flattened, instead of the pronounced nose and mouth like dogs had their heads were elongated and flat save the pointed ears backed with more smooth scale, and their eyes wide like a dog, but the irises were vertical slits. Pointing out from under their upper lips were fangs, like a dog's impressive canine teeth but significantly larger and more sinister in appearance. Like a coyote met a rattlesnake in a bar one night and the radiation took care of the crossbreeding issues.

Genetic impossibilities besides, they were vicious, that much was undoubtedly clear. ED-E was firing into the approaching pack, but the creatures seemed undeterred by the assault, their tails twitching when they were struck, but not one slowed down.

That changed when one leaped and Six promptly brought his machete down into its head. The scales resisted, but the weapon was sharp, and bit through. The force smashed the creature into the ground, and Six placed a foot on its shoulder to wrench his machete free. The remaining three were already upon them, two lunging at Veronica as she threw the first one's corpse off, and one more dedicating itself to Courier Six.

The wanderer wasted no time in ignoring the snarling creature snapping at him as it dove for his leg. Trusting the secret-keeping metal orb to keep the creature off his back, he kicked at the flank of one as it lunged, catching it midair and sending it tumbling away onto the sidewalk with some kind of distorted yelp/hiss hybrid.

The other was already on his companion though, closing its mouth on her side and sinking its fangs through the thin fabric she wore as a robe.

Six turned, but through the pain she was well aware of the best course of action – smash the gauntlet straight through its skull. The crunch that echoed against the street was impressive and frightening, and the creature hung limp from where it had buried itself in her flank.

The scribe yelped as the blow, while killing the creature outright, and pushed its fangs deeper into her skin.

Focusing on the other as it recovered, Six pulled his gun from its holster, and took note of the hissing behind him. ED-E beeped as another round of energy pulses blared loudly from its weaponry, and Six took aim at the creature as it stared at him with its monstrous eyes, sizing him up for how to attack next.

He never got a chance to pull the trigger; the creature behind him jumped, placing its forelegs on his shoulders and riding his body straight into the concrete. It snarled right next to his ear, before ED-E fired one more round, straight into the back of its neck.

The last one, standing on the pavement, let loose a great howl before bounding over him and straight for ED-E, currently the biggest threat.

The wanderer was dazed, his face having met the road in an unplanned and unpleasant party which had been gatecrashed by his own blood. He heard ED-E beeping loudly and with what could very likely have been anger or panic.

Then he heard a chorus of hissing.

Veronica punted the dead snakehound straight off him and offered a hand to haul him up, wheezing. "Y'know, last time someone bit me it was a lot more fun than this is," she panted, her hand moving down to her side as Six let go and spun to find ED-E.

The sphere was bobbing up and down, baiting the creature to jump upwards at it and then slamming its frame downwards into its face.

Given the disorientated nature of the monster dog, he must have done it a few times so far. Six wasted no time in catching it unaware, planting his machete straight through its torso and then, when the damn thing managed to spasm and bite at him still, through the neck. That sorted the son of a bitch out.

He looked over his companions. ED-E was a bit dented, but seemed to have fared best. The metal casing wasn't even slightly cracked, and aside from a few imperfections nobody would have guessed he'd been in a fight.

Veronica's wound was less unnoticeable. The creature had managed to dig its teeth in well with the help of her skull-caving fist, and her jokes were held back along with the seeping flow of blood as she clutched her side, wincing.

The courier, as far as he could tell, was fine. The bleeding was his nose, not broken but stinging something awful and pouring a steady stream of red down his face. The first thing he did was collect his gun off the ground and make sure it wasn't jammed. The gunshot echoed off the walls and immediately regret filled his every fibre.

The chorus of hissing came again, from above them.

Sighing, the drifter looked up towards the rooftops of the nearest building. Sure enough, three of the hounds were looking over the edge, staring down at them, forked tongues flicking from their mouths.

A fourth joined as they watched, and the three travellers backed away.

"Still feel like punching things?" he asked.

"Not as much, no," Veronica sighed through gritted teeth. Gasping, she dropped to her knee. "Ow, that's… poison."

Six turned back to the chain link fence. Literally one street apart, and an entire den of mutant dog freaks had been sitting and waiting for the chance to attack somebody.

Pretty fucking big 'whoopsie'.

Someone shouted from nearby, and he turned to see a patrol of troopers running towards them, asking if they needed help.

Six waved, and pointed to the roof. "Dogs!" he yelled.

Veronica shook her head beside him, and grunted as she tried to speak. "Stalkers," she managed.

The NCR trooper looked at the roof, confused, but the smart bastards had stepped back and the roof was just empty space now. The group of three continued towards them, a small gang of young men whose arrogance radiated from the looks they gave the wounded travellers. 'Silly travellers' they seemed to say 'NCR soldiers wouldn't have taken such a beating.'

"What seems to be the problem?" the one leading asked, smarmy grin screaming off his face. Didn't stay that way long. As he approached one bold snakehound vaulted off the roof.

With incredible precision, it landed directly on top of the smarmy NCR squad leader, smashing his head into the curb and it promptly had his neck in its jaws, shaking like a dog does to stop its struggling prey. It was unnecessary; the man had been knocked unconscious by the sheer force of the beast crashing into him.

Emboldened by the success of the first, two more lunged off the roof as the remaining two NCR squad members panicked. Six reacted far faster than either of them, unloading two bullets straight into the creature, the first striking its shoulder, the second through the neck, blowing an artery wide open.

The creatures' courage was as misplaced as the now-dead NCR trooper's. Neither made the jump as well as the first, one clipped a trooper in the face with its hind leg as it crashed into the chain link fence, causing it to wobble dangerously, and the other fell short with a rather disgusting '_thud_' as its body flattened onto the road.

The remaining creature backed away from the roof before Six could point his gun at it, and smartly avoided checking again.

Sliding an arm under Veronica as she faltered trying to stand up again, he hoisted her up and looked at the two shocked troopers who, now close enough, could survey the collection of dead bodies around them.

"Nightstalkers," one breathed, stunned.

_Nightstalkers_. That's what they were. Nobody knew whether it was radiation or something worse that had caused them, but what they were was a vicious, part canine, part serpent monstrosity whose scales seemed resistant to energy weapons fire. They stood up there among the Mojave's dangerous creatures, the bottom rung of a power trio ruled by Deathclaws.

And they'd managed to make a den in a building _across the fucking street_.

The troopers continued to stare at the corpses dumbfounded until Veronica groaned. "Fast poison," she commented.

Six was already pulling her along the fence-line, looking for a way in.

"Hey!" one of the troopers yelled, as though Six needed to answer for something.

"This woman is poisoned. Nightstalker venom isn't fatal, but it paralyses and it hurts like a bitch, if I recall. She needs a place to rest and preferably a doctor. You're either helping or you're standing there gawping about how absolutely shit your observations have been about this area. Where's the gate?" the seeker spat back venomously.

The demand seemed to knock the wind out of the soldier's sails. "Down that way," he said, running to catch up with the two travellers.

ED-E blurted a string of code in his direction. Six hoped it was abuse as he pulled Veronica up on her unsteady legs and kept her moving.

Neither trooper spoke a word after that, seemingly lost after the revelation that their security was far from actually secure.

Veronica kept her mouth shout, either from paralysis or from focusing on fighting that paralysis, her legs stumbling forward uneasily. ED-E bobbed in underneath the other arm and helped carry her, hovering along diagonally so that Veronica could wrap her fingers in the antennae to keep herself up.

They approached the gate, the troopers running ahead to contact their superior, or maybe the doctor if they cared less about the chain of command and more about helping Veronica. Then again, they probably had to report the death of the other smug asshole before anything else or they'd get punished.

The seeker pulled his companion over to one of the tents lined up behind the crops. A desk, paperwork, someone with a pen with a glazed look in his eyes and a balding cranium. "Next tent over," he said without looking up.

Not bothering to debate, Six pulled Veronica up and moved over. She groaned as he adjusted where she was, and her arm slipped from ED-E. The Nightstalker venom had her now – it wouldn't kill her, but she'd spend all night feeling like the bite was on fire, completely unable to move.

Some of the more sadistic tribes used Nightstalker venom for torture. They'd dab knives in the stuff and then trace it as far over the body as they could, keeping the wounds skin deep so that the poison took a long time to seep through, and the victims could feel it as more started to bleed through into their bloodstream and paralyse them proper.

One of the troops found them eventually, racing up behind the courier as he tried to keep Veronica on her feet long enough to make it to the next tent.

"We'll take her to Adam's bed. He won't be needing it," the man said, a deal more humility within him now that his boss had chewed him out. Adam must have been the dead man they'd now be going to collect around a horde of fallen Nightstalkers.

He pulled her arm up and helped the courier carry her past the tent the balding man had directed him to, down the rows and into one of the canvas dwellings. Beds had been dragged out of buildings and lined up in two rows either side of the tent.

A number remained unoccupied, and the trooper helped Six move Veronica over to the one he claimed belonged to the late Adam and lie her down. Six rummaged through his pockets, and managed to come up with one last dose of morphine.

Besides that, he noted he'd swiped a few inhalers of jet from the raiders he'd killed on the road up to Novac.

Jet, a twitch-inducing drug kept in what the Pre-War world used to keep inhaled medication, or anything that could be cobbled together to be near enough that. It sped up the human nervous system, making them twitchier, quicker.

In addition, it made them feel good, adding to the sense of quickness by giving them a surprising amount of motivation – they felt good, they had extra energy, and they felt the need to use that energy.

Each short burst lasted a good ten minutes, and it sent the person on a surprisingly productive bender, depending on the person. In some of the less-than-legal workforces jet was encouraged as a way of packing extra work in and keeping the workers high – they get addicted and become dependent on the supplier, who in turn uses them for tasks that being on a jet high helps. The work force feels good, does more work than the average force, and spends most of their days lamenting how much they feel they need more jet.

Withdrawals were bad, though. Aside from the cravings, the person's body felt dependent on the jet, and without the spark to set them off on another burst of activity, they became severely lethargic.

In the absolute worst cases jet withdrawal was so bad people died of dehydration, sitting in a lethargic stupor with their body incapable of even summoning the strength to get up.

Suffice to say it was illegal in any place that actually cared about the law, but in the Mojave a quick blast of jet wasn't considered an awful thing; something to be warned and careful about, but when you were half an hour behind and facing a job-ending deadline, a blast of jet was acceptable.

Briefly, Six considered what a burst of the hyperactive drug might do for Veronica, but quickly dismissed it. The simple mathematics of one drug effect versus another didn't hold so strong when the more scientific terms were involved. He didn't want to accidentally discover some ingredient of jet blended with some aspect of Nightstalker venom and caused the test subject to ghoulify and belch corrosive acid.

So instead he just went with the morphine, which he knew was used for making the venom burn itself out without being as painful. His father said as much when he'd recounted the story about the Nightstalker pack that scarred his face.

Six smiled, stretching his arms. Another piece of his enormous puzzle. Piece by piece, but it was something.

Even now, Benny would be sitting in his casino, plotting how best to use the platinum chip for whatever it was for. He'd be doubling security if he'd been listening to the radio. Making sure no couriers came in to deliver packages directly to the leader himself.

He sighed and sat down, leaning against the back of Veronica's bed. Maybe later he'd get some sleep, but for now he was happy as he was. He pulled one of the books he'd collected from the storage space at ED-E's back and sat down.

Reading. Half the soldiers in keeping this farm safe probably couldn't read. Here he was, a wandering courier, who knew so little about himself, and could barely remember what New Vegas was until his dreams deemed fit to remind him.

But he could read. And he liked that fact.

_~Brick & Mortar: This term refers to 'real' casinos, those based in a dedicated casino building, as opposed to online or backroom gambling establishments. Generally this carried an implication of higher stakes and/or a public view, adding new elements to play._


	14. Thirteenth Hand: Spades

Now we're really getting somewhere! Have a merry christmas guys, and check back sometime over what will be christmas in America, I'll have a special present for all you readers up around then in the form of the penultimate chapter to the first story arc of Nameless Grave. It'll be a double length season finale, so look forward to it next week and in the meantime enjoy the double dose over the weekend!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thirteenth Hand – Spades<strong>_

_4th October, 2266_

"There was a whole pack of them, but I'd managed to get the drop. They're quick though, those Nightstalkers. When you've got the advantage you have to press it or you'll be feeling it in the morning, if you last that long."

Dad's voice was muffled, far away. Why was that?

"Me and Rick, though, we knew what we were doing. We had the drop on them, and we pushed our little advantage. Gotta be a good shot with your gun; make sure you get 'em in the right places. Bang! The head's the best spot, of course. Rick was great, but he'd always preferred charging at things with that hammer of his, bulky idiot."

I was feeling really hot. Burning up. Hell, it burned so much. Yet I was wrapped in all those blankets, and I knew I should stay under them no matter how badly my body felt like it was going to burn.

That's right; mum told me my brain was confused. The sickness was scrambling the signals from the rest of my body, so when my body was freezing cold my brain thought it was boiling. So I must have been freezing.

Blazing cold. There was dad, wearing that coat of his, big and grey. It's not as bright as it was back then. The dust and blood of the desert has changed it, and after all those years there are some things that won't come out of those threads.

He was telling me the story of his scars. That's right: he said that a man's face could tell you a lot. He always said his was a road map of his slip-ups. A scar just above his brow where his old mentor had stopped a robot from cutting his eye out, the big ones from the Nightstalker pack, the patch of hair he kept intentionally shorter to remind him that fire ants lived up to their name, the chunk of ear missing for when he'd visited the Twisted Hairs and angered one of them to the point of challenging him to a duel…

"So Rick runs in, swinging his hammer, sending 'em flying off in all directions. It was really quite impressive!" dad continued enthusiastically.

There was a weight pressing down on my torso. Heavier than the blankets, lying on top of them. I couldn't see from where I was, but I knew: it was Cerberus. Keeping my body warm and keeping me company. Heh, sometimes I wonder if that shaggy thing could survive without me being there to walk beside him. Then again, I wonder how well I'd do without a companion like him.

The rusted metal roof above me had been insulated to keep the elements out. Just old blankets scavenged from around the place mostly, with extra scrap metal to keep the holes closed. Didn't want vermin sneaking in for comfort amongst the covers in the roof, that'd be yuck.

"But as impressive as it was, it was also very foolish. Remember, running into a group of enemies gets you in trouble, fast. It's always better to try and keep all your foes in one direction. If you get surrounded, you're vulnerable," dad cautioned. "Rick knew that, but he was so cocky he thought he'd just go ahead and ignore it. One of the Nightstalkers jumped at him from behind. I fired – bang! Bang! – and took it out, but there were a lot, and I couldn't risk hitting Rick, or it'd be just as bad for him as a bite, maybe worse."

Vicious, vicious creatures those Nightstalkers.

"I'm not one for melee combat; you know that by now I'm sure. You weren't even ten by the time you were managing to get the upper hand over me, hyperactive little thing you are. But Rick was a good friend, and I couldn't let him get eaten just because he thought he was bigger than he was. So I rushed on over, shooting up those snakehounds! Blam, blam, blam, blam, blam! Reload! Blam-blam-blam! Just like that!"

Mum wandered over and checked my temperature. She was pale, her tan skin considerably more white as the strain of my condition made her worry. It wasn't without reason. People had died of this sickness before. People she knew, I'd heard her say. Dad had agreed, he'd seen cases. Some lived, some died.

That scared me. That _terrified_ me. I'd caught this sickness, and people fifteen years older than me and as healthy as can be had been killed by it.

My parents had been doing what they could, of course, to keep my spirits up. Dad had been telling me stories about the adventures he and his rangers had been on. Mum read stories she'd pieced together about the Old World, and told me the myths of Poseidon Energy; the stories of Odysseus the Artificial Intelligence that went mad, and the person he was named after, who lived a long time before that, when the world was bigger. He'd gotten lost looking for his home, and been on many adventures during that time, doing everything he could to return to his beloved. She told me the stories of Poseidon and his brothers and sisters. Apparently Poseidon was part of a massive family who had run much of the Pre-War government, ruling over the Old World in a system of law called 'Olympus'. He and his family had been imperfect rulers, my mother said. While they were generally good, sometimes they were prone to acts of childish rage, or extreme arrogance. She believed that arrogance was part of the reason Olympus' power had begun to fail. Poseidon must have been the last to fall, because the influence of the others had almost entirely been erased by the time the Great War came about, and now only ruins of his temples remained. Humanity had stripped away the temples and worship of the other members of Olympus.

Cerberus had been named after a faithful guard hound of one of them, the one who had been tasked with overseeing the judgement of the dead. It was amazing; the Old World even had a way of measuring those who had died and assigning them places in the world beyond life based on their achievements.

The stories were incredible – some of them were exaggerated, mother told me. Legends always changed as people heard them, grew and shrank and changed so that at the heart of these legends the person who was responsible for their creation and the events surrounding it was never what you thought. Odysseus might have just been another man wandering around in search of a place to settle down and a woman to fall in love with who told everyone the story of his adventures. Centuries pass, and men become myths.

Even after the War, those myths endured. I was always fascinated by that, and my mother was always happy to fuel that fascination. Dad said I needed to think about the present more, sometimes, but he didn't see too much harm in it as long as I wasn't getting obsessive. He warned me not to let my mother get too overbearing with it. Never while she was within earshot though.

Kind of funny the way people do that. Tell one person to avoid something about another. They could just talk to the other about it. Then again, dad _had _talked to mum about her interest in the past, and they'd just gotten angry.

The world ended, and legends continued. Now, instead of great figures that were written about in stories, where the words couldn't change anymore, we'd gone back to telling stories with our mouths, adding glamour and intrigue to keep people hanging on our every word.

After the War, the world had become a place where anything could mutate, and legends were no exception.

Tales were still told of the Vault Dweller: the man who had stepped out of a now-empty Vault and seen the city of Necropolis taken by the Master and his Super Mutants. And alone, that man had marched across the lands that were yet to even think of the flag of the two-headed bear, and he'd rescued President Tandi before she'd been a part of the NCR, he'd descended into a great cavern that burned so brightly with radiation that warriors of the feared and then-great Brotherhood of Steel feared to tread. He'd stepped into the Boneyard, seen the Followers of the Apocalypse in infancy, and he'd saved them. He'd slain the Master in his own lair, a massive, incredible temple to his power, filled with the disciples of the new god and the mutants who obeyed him without question, born of the strange chemicals of Pre-War science and the new world's influences. He'd faced that newborn god, and he'd destroyed him, or her, or it, or whatever it had been. The legends were always different: the Master was a goddess who birthed the super mutants. The Master was a king of the Old World preserved within his temple and ready to take over the new world. The Master was a thousand people who had been forcibly merged into one being. The Master was something awoken by the end of the world, but born before it, seeking to claim the new world.

It didn't really matter at the end of the day: whatever the Master was, the Vault Dweller killed it and saved the world of America from the destruction of the super mutants.

I'd been drifting off. The fever and my thoughts about the Old World had stopped me paying attention to dad, and he was so wrapped up in his retelling he didn't even notice.

"So Rick's yelling 'get down, get down!' because he doesn't realise there are actually two Nightstalkers left, and he just can't see the one in front of me. But he says he's throwing his hammer! So I ducked, and his hammer goes flying over me and smashes into one of them, but the other one's already jumped at me, and I need to reload. Never get caught reloading, my boy," he continued to ramble, happily reliving the events almost as much for his own pleasure as to keep my mind off the fever.

"That's where these came from. The last Nightstalker of the pack jumped on me and just started going to town. Rick realised his mistake and got it off me. Thought it'd killed me for how bad it'd got me, and he got real mad. Kinda heart warming to see a friend get so angry over you that he deals out that kind of retribution to the thing that did it," dad mused. "The bite on my arm healed much better than my face, but we spent the night on the ridge. Nightstalker venom paralyses, I couldn't go anywhere! It's not pleasant, but Rick gave me a bit of morphine and I spent most of the night just sleeping it off. Not very fun, but we made it!"

I smiled. Dad loved telling stories. He'd been born into the rangers, so from day one he'd been having adventures on the road, and I don't think he even comprehended how any other kind of life could be fun.

I'd always been on the road too. My mother wanted me to have a choice in joining the rangers instead of just being born into it like dad, so I wasn't actually one of them, but I could feel it in me that I'd love wandering for a long time.

_~ Primm: The other New Vegas! ~_

_8th November, 2281_

"Hey, seeker! Wake up!"

The courier's eyelids slowly drifted back up, giving him blurry, sleep-filled sight.

He felt something tap his head, and he rubbed his eyes to see better.

"Morning," he yawned, blinking a few times to will his eyeballs back into sight.

Veronica. Upright and mobile. Up before him even.

Good, the poison was burned out and she was back to business. He must have fallen asleep reading beside her bed sometime into the evening prior.

Yawning again, he stood up, closing Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor on the page where Mick had decided to finally cut his losses and go solo. Not as interesting as Theseus, but it'd have to do.

"You're looking chipper," he said happily.

The young woman smiled and gestured to the empty tent. "I thought I'd let you sleep in, get to know the NCR a little bit. Not every day I get an excuse to spend time in one of their posts, even if it's just a supply farm," she explained.

"So how late is it?" Courier Six wondered, checking the chunky wristwatch on his left forearm. Nearing nine in the morning. "We should have been moving hours ago," he said.

"You looked so peaceful!" Veronica stated. "Like a little angel!"

"What's an angel?" Six wondered as he checked his belongings and then headed for the tent's door flap.

"It's, uh… something to do with religion. Winged people," Veronica replied after a moment thought.

"So because I'm asleep I look like I have wings? Wish I could do that while I was awake, but it must be one of those unconscious things. I'll add that to the list of reasons I don't like Benny: 'murdered me, stole my delivery, blew my memory apart, broke Trudy's radio, betrayed the Khans, stopped me from consciously looking winged and religious'. List's getting bigger," the courier observed with a chuckle.

"You know you're right, that saying never made sense," Veronica agreed. "Just another thing from Pre-War days people keep using without knowing how or why."

"Ain't it grand?" the seeker laughed.

A few hours later they were on the move, Veronica, Six, and ED-E, striding through the streets of Vegas with a more alert eye than the previous day, and both of them wearing some more durable armour. The heat made it harder to bear, but the farm had a collection of salvaged threads, most of it just collected from Fiends. They were mishmashes of metal and leather made for protection by unskilled hands, but Six and Veronica had picked out two sets of the more competently made stuff and were now wearing them under their respectively unassuming garments; Veronica's unimpressive sack robes and the Courier's grey coat.

A conversation with one of the soldiers told them that if they followed the fence-line and then kept going in that direction once it ended they'd come to Freeside's gate after a bit of travel. A recently collapsed building had slowed them down a little, but overall they didn't have much ground left to cover anyway.

Freeside, as Veronica had explained from what she knew and based on what Six himself had gleaned, was a walled off section near the Strip, and one of the only places from which one could actually get into the heart of Vegas. It wasn't a pretty place – most gamblers who went broke on the Strip ended up there, making it essentially the slums of Vegas.

Some were actually there by choice, and others willingly stayed too, but it was a hard place to be in. Crime was a daily occurrence, and the more violent casino patrons turned to muggings and worse to get another shot at the big league tables.

None of that mattered to Six though, he was interested in getting into a casino for a different kind of gamble, and his prize would be a rather different kind of chip.

As they walked through the streets they passed a factory that still had a thin plume of smoke wafting from the smoke stack. People wandered around it behind the chain-link fence separating it from the rest of the area. Guards with weapons. Six wondered what was going on in the factory. Maybe it was a drug-lab. Far enough from Freeside to avoid any rabid junkie trying to knock the doors down.

Not long after that they found themselves looking at the gate to the slums of Vegas. A large thing that had clearly been built after the War, just like the wall that closed the small community off from the harsher elements of the Outer Vegas region. It was a large arch, built from multi-coloured metal that had been painted and cobbled together to form some kind of ceremonial entrance. At the top it was mostly yellows and reds, as if to simulate the rising sun. Between the pieces of metal and wood a chain link fence could be seen, topped with rings of razor wire. The wall extended all the way around both the Strip and Freeside, keeping the Fiends and other undesirables out, and in some cases keeping the slum-dwellers in.

The gates themselves were large and iron with slotted wooden panelling, some of which could be slotted out to check what was outside and admit accordingly. The word 'FREESIDE' had been haphazardly painted in a diagonal slant, faded over time, and then been reapplied near but not quite on its original label.

More recently some proud idiot had sprayed 'NCR AND PROUD OF IT!' on one gate. Everything but 'NCR' had since been crossed out, and above the graffiti someone had charmingly added 'FUCK' to adequately explain their dislike for the New California Republic.

Right now, being the middle of the day, the gates were slightly ajar, letting people get in single-file without rushing them.

Six stepped through first, and the smells of Vegas suddenly increased tenfold as the squalor of Freeside struck his nostrils with full force. It had been something of a background noise before, but now it was considerably stronger. The smell of smoke actually helped make it better.

"Wow," the wanderer choked, shaking himself.

"Whoa," Veronica spluttered, walking in behind him and being greeted by the same sensation.

ED-E simply bobbed in and beeped as if the two of them were being silly. With no nose, the little robot was spared the smell of the slums.

"You watch yourself, now," a man warned in a peculiar accent. It was somewhat grandiose and heavy, trying to sound deeper than it actually was and more charming than it could possibly be in this place.

It was an off-putting way to speak.

"What?" he found himself wondering. He'd understood perfectly, it was just such a strange accent he couldn't help but mentally double take.

"This is Kings territory. You make sure you behave yourself or there'll be trouble," the man said in the same suave voice.

As he walked away, Six could see he was wearing a black leather vest with a picture of a crown on the back, and 'The KINGS' in big block letters. His hair was in some odd style that flowed upwards at his brow and was sleek and well-kept. Surprising for a slum-dweller. Especially one in a gang.

"Did you…?" Veronica began.

"Nope," Six finished.

They both stepped forward into Freeside. The street they were in stretched on and then opened out to the right onto something that might once have been a small garden. Now it was dead brown weeds. Many of the buildings up either side of the road were divided on whether they were overly secure or completely open; some had smashed windows and no longer kept doors, while their neighbours looked like they'd stolen the door and used it to board up their windows for safety.

Lying facedown in a gutter on one side of the street was a headless man with a charred and twisted metal collar lying between his head and the rest of him. Both parts were disgustingly old and had been rotting in the heat for at least three days. The other side of the road had another body, but this one was alive. A man blubbering and occasionally attempting to sit up, only to drop back down with a shrug – jet withdrawal.

"Ugh," Veronica sighed, wrinkling her nose as they walked. "What a minute, is that a bomb collar?"

"Veronica, I know you're a little quirky, but that's a bit kinky even for someone who fists things with a pneumatic gauntlet," Six sighed and kept walking.

ED-E exploded into a chorus of beeps and chirps. Little bastard was actually laughing at Six's joke. Inappropriate humour tickled the little sphere's funny… wire. How bout that?

The Brotherhood member joined the laughter, and then somehow managed to return to a serious face so fast it made the courier laugh too.

"Bomb collars are the kind of tech the Brotherhood uses-keeps. The kind of tech the Brotherhood keeps. They can't be taken off without disabling the signal and they… kinda blow your head off if the signal changes in the wrong direction," she explained.

"I reiterate: way too kinky. I like you, but no way I'm getting a collar that blows my head off strapped on just so I can get my head blown off," the wanderer said flatly. Wow, thirty seconds in Freeside and he was already right there in the gutter with his humour. Way to go Freeside, _that's _immersion and culture. Of a sort.

ED-E continued laughing, weird little orb. He was getting more personable with all the travel, maybe. Courier Six knew some AIs were actually programmed to do that: learn from the environment around them and evolve their programming based on it. Essentially it created a program that was the mental equivalent of a baby, but through observation of the world around it its programming mimicked a human growing up, getting more complex and intricate until eventually it might as well have been a real person for all the electrical signals and self-evolving systems contained in the metal shell.

The Old World was an incredible place. He wondered how many of those AIs might have been operating back then. How many had died as their processors corroded and the elements tore through their fragile circuits? Had they died as humans, terrified and in pain? Or had their programming not evolved in such a way, incapable of perceiving pain in a state of wilful ignorance to avoid the damage it could cause? Surely losing functions and signals would be pain of a kind for a machine, especially if it was self-aware and understood that once those programmes ended it would go dark forever and die.

If ED-E continued to grow as he seemed to, would he eventually reach the state of human awareness where he would comprehend pain? Would he, like so many come to fear death, some kind of electronic reaper that would one day claim him with time or damage?

Six looked at the orb, Veronica's retort lost in his sudden fall into the profound thoughts and questions. A metal ball. A metal ball that hovered, shot lasers, and apparently contained a wealth of hidden data within its frame. He reached up and patted it, and it tilted away and turned to look at him, beeping inquisitively. A metal ball that was his friend.

Courier Six smiled. His nose wrinkled.

_Wow_, Freeside smelt disgusting.

"You okay?" Veronica wondered, looking at him. "If you come back now I won't do it after all!"

"Won't do what?" he blinked.

The scribe grinned. "Never you mind," she said coyly.

Confused and slightly interested in what Veronica might have said, Six decided to ignore it instead and keep walking.

A sign to his right, relatively new, identified an old shop that had been taken over and reused as 'Mick & Ralph's'. Sitting in front of it, smoking a cigarette, was a man with a suspiciously affable grin and a leather jacket with full pockets. He watched them both as they walked down the street, his face smiling, but his eyes were scoping them for some purpose or another.

A small group of men sitting in a triangle playing cards paused as one threw a king of spades onto the pile. They looked up at the three travellers, looking first at the strange metal object hovering through the air (how much is it worth?), then at the woman striding confidently through the street (what's she look like under those robes?), and finally at the courier in the grey coat sparing a glance over at them (how much money does he have?).

Leaning up against a wall was another of the suave gangsters wearing a leather 'The KINGS' jacket with greased hair. He watched them like the other men had, but his smile seemed more genuine: his face smiled, but unlike the others his eyes smiled too, giving off something of a quietly warm welcome to the travellers.

In the distance a woman screeched loudly. It was cut off abruptly, worryingly. The gang member took off towards it at high speed, leaving the three travellers unwatched as they turned a corner and walked down towards the park area.

A large group of people wearing frayed clothing stood around an old drum can talking. A rodent of unusual size ran down the street squeaking loudly as a small group of children chased after it with knives. A woman dressed in just about nothing strutted down the street and paused to start talking with one of the greasers.

Beyond the park was a large wall, concrete and brick, walling off a section of town. The high walls looked difficult at best to scale. Whatever was on the other side must have been important.

Six looked up through the buildings, those who had decayed and those who had been preserved by both skilled hands and those desperate enough to resort to duct tape, and saw the great tower of Vegas looming over the city. It was so very close now, spearing up into the sky like that, four prongs reaching outwards as if holding the enormous disc in the centre, and the needle above it, accusing the skies.

It was no Colossus of Rhodes, but it was majestic and iconic all the same.

And in its shadow, plotting deviously, was Benny. The snake.

All that stood between the courier and his delivery was Freeside.

"Let's go," he said, though they were already moving.

The walls bordered on a crossroads, and away to their left was the Strip. Freeside's other gate stood along the right, near the heavy wooden doors to the fort. A sign in front of it identified it as the 'Old Mormon Fort', probably some kind of historical landmark.

His scar beginning to twinge, Six turned towards the mighty tower and started walking. Veronica and ED-E followed without hesitation.

An old school bus with one half torn open formed a sort of gate into the next area of the district, its side door pushed open, but presumably capable of being closed and locked as a way of fortifying a location.

Pushing it open, Six stumbled backwards, his nostrils burning. Pinching them, he barrelled through the 'gate' where some individual had used the driver's seat as a toilet and emerged on the other side still alive but feeling decidedly more filthy for the journey. This place was awful.

Veronica coughed and spluttered her way through. ED-E fired a few bolts of energy into the other end of the bus. The smell would probably linger for days anyway, but Six would rather the smell of scorched metal to what was there previously, and hopefully the little robot's laser fire was enough to overpower the other stench.

Freeside's name came from the street they were on, which stretched from the northeast side of the walls down to the Strip itself: 'Fremont Street'. Between the Strip and Freeside was another wall, and another gate, this one with tighter security than Freeside's two entrances, and glamorously advertised as 'The Strip' in neon lettering above the enormous metal double doors.

Two small walkways had been built in front of it, connected by a bridge, and on top of them were more machines like Victor: the Securitrons. Big bulky things with single tires and enormous blue shoulders, hose-like arms extending down from them. Victor's face was a beaming cowboy, but these missions displayed a cartoon policeman with a big round nose sternly facing out from their screens.

Between the bus/gate and the Strip's gate though there was a long portion of Fremont Street left to traverse. The large road was split into two, with street lights, withered grass and what remained of the concrete crash barriers between the two lanes that previously allowed traffic to pour towards and away from the heart of Vegas.

Now it was just feet and hooves that followed the roads, the cars on top of them had been pulled away long ago, used to bolster walls or in other displays of gaudy impressiveness.

A large street wound down to the right with a crier on either corner, loudly declaring the services that their employers offered.

"Hungry? Thirsty? Horny? The Atomic Wrangler has got you covered!" one said loudly as the wanderer and his company wandered by. Down the road he could see the 'Atomic Wrangler'. An unassuming building that had a large neon sign above it showing a cowboy riding an atom and the building's name spelled down so that it was just above the doorway. A little further down the street was a large building that might once have been a hall of some kind. A sign above that identified it as the 'Silver Rush'.

Considerably more bizarre however was what lay on the left of the street just a little further down Fremont Street. An enormous building on the corner covered with neon signage, its entrance opened out directly onto the corner and was crowned with an enormous neon guitar silhouette. Its neck was covered in stars, and in bright lettering within the heart of the guitar it stated charismatically: "The King's".

Stretching along both street-facing sides of the three storey building were more neon signs, blue frames with silhouettes outline in purple showing a figure that seemed to be dancing, or at least standing somewhat awkwardly and pointing down at anyone looking upon them. They flanked the guitar, and stretching away towards the other sides of the building in big golden letters were the words 'School of Impersonation'.

"The King's School of Impersonation," the wanderer read. "Wow, look at that place."

"Guess that's where the gangsters hang out," Veronica assumed. "Nice place. Wonder if they've got toilets."

"Y'know I met a guy who might like this. I'm saying that based purely on the big guitar though, I suppose," Courier Six thought, looking at the building as they passed.

Sure enough, one of 'the Kings' was leaning against the wall by the door, and two more were conversing just a short way away.

"Really? The place looks a little jarring for the slums around it, don't you think?" Veronica pointed out.

"Sure, but he was a performer. Standing in the most noticeable spot around was part of his thing. He actually said he'd write a song about me," the courier chuckled. "If you hear someone singing a song about a courier in the future, just remember, it's about me."

"I'll make my criticisms of the historical inaccuracies harsh and provide the embarrassing truths to amend them with with pride," the scribe promised.

ED-E beeped again.

"You're a true friend," Six said with a chuckle.

They neared the checkpoint in front of the Strip. The bulky robots guarding it watched them as they approached. As they got closer they could hear music being played on the Strip, a charismatic track about the moon, despite it being mid-afternoon, setting a suave and well-cut atmosphere for the heart of Vegas.

The huge tower was so close here, its thicker base obvious from where Six stood, rising behind the protective wall. Another large sign rose up, facing down onto the road of the Strip, but visible here from Freeside's gate alongside the enormous building it named. The silhouettes of two women with one leg in the air each, sitting with their backs to the stylised name 'Gomorrah'.

The drifter smiled triumphantly. Just a little longer. By the end of the night he'd have some answers.

A man wearing dirty cotton clothing bolted past the three, heading for the Strip. One of the Securitrons rolled towards him and a hand rose, but he ignored it and kept running, panting loudly and heavily.

"You have entered a restricted area. Remove yourself!" one of the Securitrons barked in an authoritative and slightly tinny voice.

The man ignored it, going for the gate.

"Cease now, or lethal force will be used!" a different Securitron warned in the same voice.

The man reached for the gate to the Strip frantically, trying to reach it before security came down on him.

"EXTERMINATE!" one Securitron screeched, and all of them opened a volley of laser fire from their hands, blasting the desperate man. His body disintegrated, his flesh and organs becoming a stain of vaguely human shaped ash part way up the Strip gate. His skeleton remained a little longer as the rest of its mass was blown off it and into the surface in front of it before it too smashed into the gate, crumpling to the ground and then disintegrating into a neat little pile of ash.

Courier Six swallowed his enthusiasm.

One of the Securitrons turned and rolled towards him. He had no shame in admitting that he was intimidated after how thoroughly they'd dealt with the last person who broke their 'rules'.

"Submit to a credit check or present your passport before proceeding to the gate. Trespassers will be shot," the stern police face demanded.

"Credit check?" Six blinked, not understanding.

The television screen went blank, and a small horizontal beam burst from it, starting at Six's feet and then sliding up his entire body.

He jumped back instinctively, but he felt nothing as the beam slid up his body and above his head. The Securitron repeated the process for Veronica, and finally ED-E.

"I'm sorry, but your balance does not meet the minimum balance," the policeman face said, returning as if sliding up from under the screen. The display seemed to glitch every now and again, the picture bouncing up and down in its frame before reaching its initial place again.

"But I need to get in!" the courier exclaimed loudly, the Securitrons refusal pushing him further back from his goal, a development that he did not appreciate.

The Securitron was unmoved by his disdain. "If you are unable to meet the minimum balance requirement, an official passport is an acceptable alternative," it explained without emotion.

Irritated, Six's hands clenched into fists. "Robot!" he demanded. "Let me past!"

"No," the policeman face said flatly. "Please return when you have sufficient caps or a passport."

The courier who rose from the grave at Goodsprings turned on his heel and walked away from his destination. Not by choice, but by circumstance.

"Well, now what?" Veronica asked, knowing that neither were about to give up. It was a simple equation, really. Perhaps it would be a little tricky, but they could still get into the heart of Vegas and find Benny, all they needed was to make a little money.

"We need a passport, or a lot of money," the courier said simply.

ED-E had a long winded rant about something in electronic form bobbing up and down, and then tuned into a radio station that was played a song about a highwayman who slew soldiers and stole women's trinkets.

"No, we're not stealing our way into the Strip. We just need to ask the right people," the courier replied, looking at the eyebot quizzically. "Might as well start with the bar."

They walked back down Fremont Street feeling rather less optimistic, but ED-E's song was surprisingly upbeat, going on to describe the highwayman being hung and then switching perspective to a sailor who drowned, to a man who worked on building Hoover Dam, and finally to a man who flew a 'starship', all of whom despite having been supposedly killed were still alive.

Blinking in disbelief, Six realised ED-E was a great deal more observant than he'd first given him credit for being. He was a courier now, but he could have worked on Hoover Dam. He could have been a highwayman. Sailor, whatever that was, maybe not, but the point was that despite death itself, or what appeared by all accounts to be just that, these men lived on. Perhaps even prospered.

Courier Six was a man with a life that he'd lived. He had a father: Damien, who had taught him how to fire a gun, whose grey coat he had inherited and who's wandering ways he'd gladly followed. He had a mother whose name he could not remember, but she'd taught him how to read, given him knowledge of the Old World to give him perspective on the one that lived on after it, and who had striven for the pursuit of knowledge above all things. He'd once had a faithful companion, a great shaggy black dog who had been named Cerberus, a call back to the legends before the War. He'd been murdered, but he lived on. In time, he might return to who he had once been. He hoped he would. But, ultimately, he may merely be a single drop of blood on the drenched plains of the Mojave.

Which would it be?

"Excuse me," came the suave voice of one of the gangsters. "I couldn't help but notice your desire to get into the Strip."

The small party turned to look at the young man with slicked back hair and a leather jacket. Underneath that was a shirt with thick horizontal stripes, black and white. He was a few years younger than Six, with a harsh face. The courier said nothing.

"I represent a very important man here in Freeside. You're in need of help, and I think that maybe he could have a use for you," he stated.

Six exchanged a look with Veronica. "What kind of 'use' are we talking about?"

The man smiled without feeling and extended a hand. "You'll learn when you pay your respects," he said.

Six shook his hand, looking at him suspiciously. "To who?"

"The King."

_~Spades: A playing card suit of the modern French deck, associated with the classical element of air, an untameable and wild force. Its equivalent in the tarot deck is 'swords'. _


	15. Fourteenth Hand: King of Spades

_**Fourteenth Hand – King of Spades**_

_8th November, 2281_

"Welcome back to the program! This is Mr. New Vegas, and I hope I'm not comin' on too strong. If you like news, you're gonna love our next story: Caesar's Legion continues to fortify its position in Nelson, where it remains a constant concern for Camp Forlorn Hope and the nearby town of Novac. Further from home, Primm formally swore in a new sheriff today! RNV reporters were on hand to hear the new sheriff address the crowd."

"Howdy do, folks. I'm Sheriff Meyers. Be good, or I'll shoot you dead."

"These headlines were brought to you by Vault 21. Vault 21: everything's better… when you experience it in a Vault! More classics coming right up for you, so stay tuned!"

The courier had been wrong, and he didn't mind admitting it. They looked sneaky and dishonest, with hair greased back so neatly and leather jackets that implied nothing short of pack mentality and a tendency to bully. Some of them even leaned that way. Yet despite what some of the individuals amongst them had been like, the Kings were far from such things.

The King, not to be confused with the Kings, had mentioned his men noticing the courier pass through Freeside on more than one occasion. While they knew nothing more than his face and his nature of keeping to himself, the King had been able to provide one piece of information: as Aaron Holmes had claimed, he seemed to be in a relationship with a member of the Followers of the Apocalypse whose headquarters was located in the Old Mormon Fort.

In exchange for helping him he'd offered not only information on Rachel, but a passport that would allow him access to and from the Strip as long as he held it. All he had to do was help the Kings make Freeside a little safer and a little more honest. Happy to have his expectations so thoroughly subverted, the courier agreed to his first task: investigating a suspicious bodyguard.

Hiring an escort in Freeside was a solid decision for any trader or tourist, given how sour some of the people could be, and working as a bodyguard to get people from the gates to the Strip was honest work for most, defending their clients from Freeside's darker aspects. Recently though, one particular man was doing suspiciously well and making a fortune in repeat business; once he'd guarded a client they never wanted anyone else to escort them.

The King was suspicious, and rightly so. If he'd just been a mercenary who was good at his job, considerably more so than anyone else in Freeside, then his talent earned him that money, but the suave-voiced smooth talker had been right on the money: 'Orris' as he claimed to be called was a con-man. He charged more than the other bodyguards, partly because he split it with four thugs elsewhere in Freeside who were in on the job – look menacing, approach with a knife, and have Orris fire blanks at them.

He looks like a hero, the client thinks he's legendary; they want to hire him the next time they're going through. He starts putting other bodyguards who are genuinely fighting to defend their clients out of business.

He'd said to meet up with Veronica and ED-E back at The King's School of Impersonation. In order to look more convincing as a tourist Courier Six had approached Orris alone, which left the Brotherhood member and the eyebot to do a little sight-seeing of the rather poor conditions in Freeside.

"What do you have for me?" the King asked, his voice a surprisingly close resemblance to a figure of folklore Six had never heard of.

They sat in a small theatre room, tables and chairs filling one half of the room, looking up onto a small stage on which two men were dancing. Unlike the rest of his organisation (Six hesitated to call them a gang now, though admittedly that was still what they were) the King wore a clean cream suit over a blue shirt and black dress pants. His hair, like that of the rest of the Kings, was slicked back and well-kept, apparently one of their trademarks. The two sat at a table at the front of the room.

Sitting beside the King on his haunches was Rex, a dog who had come into the King's ownership some time prior and had been a faithful companion for a long time. Rex was no ordinary dog though; the canine was a centuries-old cyberdog, one of the many miracles of the Old World. Encased in a metal shell on his head was the dog's brain, kept alive in its tank for years and years, with various attachments and diodes reading his brain's electrical signals and transferring them through the network of wires and circuits that were perfectly bonded to the dog's living tissue. Aside from the metal hat on his head, Rex's face was organic, fur, flesh, teeth, eyes, the whole package. Most of the front of his body was the same, with the rest of his body becoming increasingly metallic further along his back. Both his hind legs were metal, as was his right foreleg as well, yet he seemed to have no problem with it.

Despite living like that for years, the dog's organic parts had been kept alive through some remarkable workings of science, although the result of whatever was keeping him alive after all this time had a side effect of making him forever smell like wet dog.

His head was resting in the King's lap as the leader of the Kings looked over at the table at his business partner, the courier.

"Your suspicions were nothing short of accurate. Orris is conning people, hiring a few thugs to look threatening and then acting like a hero. People are probably too scared to notice the inconsistencies," the courier briefed, leaning forward onto the table and tapping it with a finger. "He fired three shots and four thugs dropped. He claimed he was such a good shot he could take someone out without any blood because he knew exactly where to shoot in order to _clog the artery _instead of severing it, which is so impossible I didn't even bother hiding my disbelief, and all four of the apparent thugs were still breathing. One of them might even have an allergy to something around here because as I stepped over him he was actually labouring to breathe. Soon as we were around the corner he had a sneezing fit. I don't know whether that was just a bad day or whether everyone else who comes through is a moron."

The King scowled at the table, and for a moment Six feared he'd upset him by railing so strongly against the con-man, but he reassured him by looking up and nodding approvingly at the courier.

"So that's how it happens…" he said. "Okay, then. I'll have some guys pull him off the street when no one's looking."

"I like your style, King," the courier said with a smile.

"You too, courier. You've shown me something, so maybe you can help me with a matter that's a little more important," the King replied, leaning an elbow on the arm of his chair and petting Rex. "A lot of people round these parts who've been here a while resent the sheer number of people that have come into the area since the Strip was built."

"It isn't exactly quiet around here," Six observed.

"In turn the newcomers, most of whom come from the NCR, have gotten ornery from being resented. Sometimes things get violent. This is one of those occasions," the King briefed, glancing over at the show, where one of the men had tripped up and was hastily and clumsily trying to get back into the routine in time with his partner. "Recently, a few friends of mine were attacked, and I want you to find out who did it," he concluded.

Courier Six nodded. "I can understand that," he commented, looking up to see Veronica wave from the doorway into the foyer and point back behind her. He nodded in either acknowledgement or confirmation; she'd wait in the foyer rather than interrupt.

Quirky, polite, and always up for conversation. Rachel was going to have to make a strong impression on her apparently intimate mailman.

"Word's come that they just woke up over at Old Mormon Fort just north of here. I want you to head on over and see if they remember anything."

"You got it. I'll head over now," the courier said, pushing his chair back and standing up. The man on stage had managed to resume his act in time with his partner, doing his best to ignore the slip-up.

"Good," the King said with a pleased smile. "I like that enthusiasm. Come back when you have some information we can use."

Stretching, the courier strode through the tables to the door and stepped into the foyer. A large reception desk dominated the room, running into a point that aimed towards the door out into Freeside's central street. Sitting in a seat behind the desk, his shoes abnormally clean was the King's right hand man and childhood friend, Pacer. While the King's face was warm, Pacer's was angular and sharp, with calculating eyes.

As the courier moved forward to meet Veronica, who'd taken a seat near a window, Pacer watched him like a hawk. It seemed that while the King had decided to trust Six with some of his tasks, his childhood friend had remained less than trusting toward their newly hired help.

"So, how'd it go?" Veronica asked pleasantly.

"The guy was crooked. Faking attacks so that people thought he was impressive. Won't be keeping that dishonest job going much longer," the seeker responded.

"Does that mean we're in?" the scribe concluded.

"Nope. That was a small one to prove he could rely on me for something more important, or some such. We're heading over to the Old Mormon Fort to see a few of his friends. Apparently they had the crap kicked out of them, and the King doesn't appreciate it," the seeker briefed on the way out the door.

ED-E let fly another string of code.

"You said it," Veronica agreed. "Wonder if this place was always so tacky, or whether they decided to renovate later."

"They say the Strip is actually rebuilding. New signs and neon, adding to the buildings, working to smooth out the streets. Everyone sounded quite impressed," Courier Six relayed, having overheard a few people talking about it on his way through Freeside.

"Huh. Guess the Mojave's further along than anyone gives it credit for," Veronica said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?"

They strode down Fremont Street, pushing through the crashed bus.

"I mean some places have been building for a while already. Shady Sands, the NCR's Capital city has been building outwards for decades, adding to the city as the population requires. But a lot of places are still just squatting in the ruins, keeping them stable where they can and letting unused buildings fall apart. A lot of the Mojave are doing the same. It sounds like Vegas is moving forward though," Veronica clarified, gesturing back to where the lights of the Strip were beginning to glow as the light faded from the eastern skies.

Already the sun had drifted down below the enormous tower, the Lucky 38, to rest its light with those of the Strip. Soon it would be evening proper, and the night would start to take hold.

They'd need a place to sleep by then. The streets of Freeside were dangerous during the day. Trying to sleep outdoors was playing Russian roulette with five chambers loaded.

Briefly, Six's thoughts paused. He wondered if 'Russian' was some kind of word for 'deadly' or 'stacked odds'. He'd never heard it used outside the term 'Russian roulette'. If he ever found another dictionary he'd have to remember to look it up. Assuming he survived this Russian chase with Benny.

The heavy wooden gates of the fort were braced with metal, but a rather inconspicuous side-door with an eye-slot was situated in one of the corner towers, and after a knock a panel slid open to reveal a set of brown eyes.

"Here for medical attention or something other?" he asked.

"On business from the King," the courier replied in his best business tone.

The slot was closed and a few locks clattered as the Follower of the Apocalypse opened the door with a creak. Behind was a mousy-haired man wearing the white coat of the Followers who gestured back to another door in the stone keep.

"Go right through," he said. A short man, he seemed well aware of his unthreatening nature and worried that other people would take advantage of it. Sitting with her boots up on a table holding a hand of cards was a guard, dressed in a dirty brown duster and wearing an impressive desperado cowboy hat. Her skin was decayed, clutching the cards in one hand and a shotgun in the other. A guard. A walking corpse guard. Better her than someone who could actually get uglier from a bullet wound.

Six did so, with Veronica and ED-E on his heels, stepping through the dark interior of Old Mormon Fort's guard tower and into the courtyard beyond.

Tents were lined up along the walls of the fort, with tables dominating the corner opposite Six, stopping just before the big wooden doors. People in Followers coats strode about, moving between tents and stopping to converse.

A few stands from Pre-War shops had been brought in, and on them stood various kinds of pharmaceutical items; stimpaks, morphine, and a few precious bags of 'rad-away' filter, a miracle solution than cleansed radiation from the body. Besides that, boxes of tablets and pills stacked up along the few displays, with two people sitting in front of them playing a card game to keep stock.

Sandbags were set up in a semi-circle facing the heavy doors, against which leaned a man in a duster similar to the other guard, holding a laser rifle: a piece of rare tech.

A woman with blue eyes moved towards him as the seeker and his companions observed the fort's courtyard and its operations. "Are you here to drop off medical supplies? Leave them with the rest in the middle of the courtyard," she said calmly.

She wore a radio on her coat, and her hair, light brown, was mostly shaven, save for a mohawk much like the Great Khan member Jessup who'd been there on the night of Six's death.

"You're in need of them?" he asked, looking over at the displays.

"Rates of injury and illness in Freeside are very high. Supplies don't last long," she explained with a sigh.

"So what are you short on?"

The woman looked back at the displays as well, then back at him, and gave a small smile. One with a little bit of hope, but weighed down considerably more hardships. "Morphine, fixer, and if at all possible, rad-away, are Freeside essentials," she stated. "I'm afraid I can't pay you for any supplies you bring in, but I could discount the charge for our services."

Fixer was an important drug to those with addictions they couldn't, or were trying to avoid fuelling. It suppressed the body's cravings, meaning that aside from helping combat something like a lethargic jet addiction it could also dull the morphine cravings and even the thirst for alcohol. Beyond that, it would suppress all cravings, meaning any desire for specific foods would be ignored, and a strong hunger could be dulled for a time, tricking the body into thinking it wasn't starving.

Like all drugs, it ran the same risk of addiction though. The ability to dull the body's cravings could become as important to a person as feeding those cravings without it.

"I don't have anything now, but if I can spare some in the future I'll be sure to," the drifter assured.

"Just come see me when you've got some supplies to turn in," she sighed. "It's very busy here, I'm sorry, but I can't spare another moment."

"I need to know where I can find the King's friends."

The woman pointed towards a tent and walked away without another word.

"Can't help but be impressed with what they're doing here," Veronica said, looking around the fort in admiration. "Helping people, teaching them, learning more."

"It's an admirable endeavour," Courier Six agreed as they paced over to the tent the woman had indicated. "Nothing wrong with the pursuit of knowledge."

"It's how it's used," Veronica pointed out, "that makes knowledge dangerous."

"An old saying from my mother went something like that. 'Knowledge is power', she used to say," the wanderer thought. "What a wonderful saying…"

"I thought you had amnesia?" Veronica said with light-hearted snark.

"It's rather selective. Bits float to the surface all the time, like splinters of a boat that's been blown up. Or something," he attempted to explain. All he earned was an eyebrow raise from his friend.

Stepping past a man with near-white hair and thick glasses in another lab coat, they moved into the tent to find the fellows they were looking for. Two old mattresses sat on the floor. One man dressed in cloth and rags was unconscious on one, covered in a dirty, thin sheet. Another sat on the second, staring at the wall.

The third, a wrinkled old man, sat on a chair looking down on the unconscious one, though his gaze shifted when the newcomers entered.

"What is it? Can't you see I want to be left alone with my friend here?" he demanded in a voice that seemed a little too young for his face.

"Easy there, Goldie. The King sent me himself, I'm here to help."

"Oh, that's different then," the man said, noticeably relaxing. "How can I help? I'll do anything to get the bastards that did this."

"Alright, let's start with the details of the attack," the courier said, driving straight to the point.

"Well, it happened at night. Around eleven. We had recently made some caps off a bit of scrap we found, and we wanted to invest it wisely," the man said. His next sentence brought 'wisely' into question. "As we were leaving the Wrangler, we must've taken a wrong turn, and ended up in the Squatter side of town. From out of nowhere these big guys show up and start barking questions at us. Wanted to know if we were locals. The kid there's about as proud as a local around here gets, and started yelling back at them."

The young man staring at the wall of the tent turned to them briefly, and then looked at his friend, unconscious on the mattress.

"Then all hell broke loose. Kid got the worst of it, sad to say," the old man sighed.

"They sound like nice people," Veronica lied.

The courier thought about it. Attacked over being locals and proud of it. Not a complicated picture. "Can you remember anything about the people?" he enquired.

The old man's face grew extra wrinkles as he tried to remember. "They were big guys. Young, too. No old geezers like me. Hell, none of them looked even half my age," he remembered. "I was mostly facedown in the dirt, begging for my life when it happened, so I only got a quick look at them. I hope you find the bastards that did this. If you want, try asking my friend Wayne there about them. He saw more than I did."

"Alright then, Wayne, what can you tell me?"

"Did the King really send you?" Wayne asked. He wore a faded hoodie and puffy pants.

"He certainly did. Help me out and he'll make sure he sorts this mess out," Six stated, oddly professional about the whole thing.

"I don't really know what else I can add," Wayne admitted. "They were a bunch of guys. Better dressed than most Freesiders, I guess. That help?"

"Well, narrows it down," the courier admitted.

Wayne sighed and knocked his head with his palm. "Sorry I couldn't help more, especially since you're being so nice."

Better dressed than most Freeside residents and probably not local. That did narrow it down, to about any Strip resident kicked out. Hell, it could have been Benny taking a temper tantrum out on some Freeside residents who couldn't follow him back into his suite at the Tops.

"Hey wait! I just remembered something!" Wayne said loudly, startling both the courier and Veronica. Possibly ED-E too. "I might of heard one of the guys that attacked us call another by name."

'Might have heard' Six mentally corrected.

"We had just about had it when one of them said 'Hey Lou, we gotta go.' At least I think he said Lou. Might have been something else," the young man remembered, thinking. "Now that I think of it, he said Lou-something. Something with a 'T'. Tenant! That's what he called him! Lou Tenant!"

"He probably said 'lieutenant', Wayne," the old man pointed out.

Wayne paused for a moment, and Six could almost smell his mind sizzling as it attempted to process what the old man was getting at. Finally it clicked. "Oh," he said, a sense of understanding spreading over his face, quickly followed by embarrassment.

"And that is all I needed. Good work, guys, I'll let the King know what's going on," the wanderer said, turning and striding from the tent.

"So, soldier boys giving the locals trouble," Veronica summarised.

The wanderer nodded. "Looks that way. They're all busy trying to survive in this place, why do they have to go and start beating the crap out of each other?" he wondered.

"Maybe they're bored?" the scribe offered.

"Is it bad to say it wouldn't surprise me? I swear people have fought over things every bit as petty on a bigger scale," the wanderer replied as they passed through the fort's guard room and out onto the street again.

As they walked down Fremont Street the sun drooped further down, turning the blue skies amber and signifying an end to an already long day.

"Hey, you!" a man called as they walked down the road.

Moving towards him, he gestured down an alleyway to a dumpster. "I need some help here!" he said desperately, racing over to it.

Following behind him, Six approached with both urgency and caution. He looked at the dumpster. Inside there was a man missing an arm… lying on top of the bloodied remains of more people.

"I can't believe anyone would be so stupid," the man snarled, charging with a knife.

"I agree!" the courier replied, his machete in hand and cleaving into the man's collar bone within moments.

His friends sprang from hiding, each of them holding some kind of knife, from kitchen utensil to military issue. Five of them, two hiding further down the alleyway and three rushing in from behind.

Not one of them expected ED-E to burst into a strange kind of fanfare and start firing lasers. One was singed apart within moments. The other managed to slash Veronica's arm as her gauntlet sent him and his broken ribcage flying back into the street. The two in front of Six ran at him swinging. He kicked the first man backwards, knocking them both over and drawing the blade from his shoulder in the process.

Both got up, but his gun was already in hand. They hesitated. "Leave," the courier commanded, and one did so immediately. The second, further demoralised by his friend vanishing, decided to run as well.

By the time he turned around the last man was stumbling backwards and clutching his eye as it bubbled and sizzled in agony. ED-E's blast had been a direct strike, and the superheated energy did not react well to the human eyeball.

"I think we're done here," Veronica said angrily, rubbing the slash on her arm and leaving the man she'd punched to lie in agony as one of his bones punctured his lung and left him barely capable of breathing.

"What is with this place?" Six sighed, slipping the machete back into its sheath and examining his coat for blood. They both stepped out of the alleyway and continued. Someone would deal with the corpses. Not an enviable position, but someone would.

ED-E beeped unenthusiastically and bobbed up and down.

Veronica tapped at the wound. "Ow. People here are down on their luck. Desperate. They'll do anything. Including lure people into an alleyway and kill them," she said, rather sadly. "Not a good way to make friends, but it pays the bills, I guess."

"We need a place to stay the night. If the King can't put us up we're going to have to scrape something together and stay a night at the Atomic Wrangler," the wanderer said, looking at the sun as it dipped below the walls of Vegas.

The King's School of Impersonation was lit up as the light faded from the sky, its lights not altogether unlike those of the Strip just over the wall, though not joined by any others.

Six stepped inside and left Veronica and ED-E in the foyer to speak with the rest of the greasers while he stepped past Pacer, who continued to eye him, and strode over to the King.

The suave man checked his watch, and then looked up at the courier in his employ. "Have you found something else, or were you just here to chat?" he asked, noticing the few extra specks of blood on the man's coat.

"Your buddies were hit by soldiers, King. One of them heard the word 'lieutenant'. Only one organisation around the place these days uses Old World military titles, and it isn't the Legion," Six explained.

The King frowned. "Bunch of soldier boys, huh? They usually don't come around these parts since their big base is on the other side of the Strip," he said, turning to look out the window.

Rex let out a whine and rested his head on the floor, running a paw over the metal casing on his head as if trying to get something off it.

The King reached down to pet the pained animal, and Six's wound began to ache. Rubbing his forehead, he interjected. "Camp McCarran, right? That big old walled off area for Pre-War flying machines?"

"That's right," the King confirmed. "If they're comin' over here now, it's gotta be for a reason. I didn't want to believe the rumours that they're looking to take over Vegas, but now… if something big is going down, I'm sure rumours of it will have spread."

"I got your info, how about some of mine?" the wanderer asked, taking a seat beside the King.

He paused, taken off his train of thought, and looked at the wanderer for a while, debating whether he considered them even. "Fair's fair. You got me the information I wanted, so I'll give you the information you want. You look into this a little deeper afterwards, and I'll organise you a passport while you're gone. Hopefully, if we need you again, you'll be around to ask," he offered, leaning forward onto the table.

Six nodded and leaned forward himself. "I think I can understand those terms. Rachel, then. What can you tell me?"

"Aside from her working with those hippies in the fort?" the King began, chuckling. "Well, I can see why you took a liking to her for one. I saw her there once while I was talking to their leader Julie – that's the one with the weird spiky haircut – about ol' Rexie here. Poor guy's been getting sickly lately, so I decided to check and see if they could do anything. Anyway, she was there, talking to a few of the other doctors. Dressed in the same kind of coat as the rest, so there was no mistaking her job."

"Yeah? What about me?" the courier wondered, looking over the King's features as if searching for any more being told through facial language.

One aspect of that language was a shake of the head. "I never saw you personally, just my guys. Said you dropped into the fort both times you were here in the past year, but that was before she showed up."

"How long has she been here?"

"About two months now. Not sure what she works on, but she's good at it. A few rich kids from the Strip have rolled down to the fort to meet her before, surrounded by some smug looking bodyguards. She went back with them to the Strip sometimes, one of my boys says," the King continued, stroking Rex's head.

"Hmm," Six replied simply, taking it in.

"So then a while back, about a week and a half ago, one of her clients comes back through from the east gate. Giving everyone funny looks, carrying his gun in hand everywhere, right? Disappears into the fort, and nobody hears from him for a couple days," the information continued. Immediately the courier's expression darkened. This wasn't going anywhere pleasant. "He leaves the fort finally, and she's right there with him. The two of them walk right on past those tin cans at the gate and head on into the Strip. Nobody in Freeside's seen her since."

Six pushed his chair back and stood up. He looked around the room. The act had long since stopped, but the King seemed to be enjoying his spot all the same. An empty plate on the table behind him suggested he'd recently had dinner. The thought reminded Six that he hadn't eaten in quite some time either. ED-E still had a few snacks stored, assuming Veronica hadn't stolen them.

Besides himself and the King a few of his 'men' were sitting at a table towards the back playing some game about 'would you rather…' Everyone else in the building heard whether the doors to the theatre were closed or not though.

"_BITCH!_" Six screamed at the top of his lungs.

The King's eyes widened and he leaned back in his chair.

The courier panted for a little while and then sat back down, sighing an apology and getting comfortable again.

"I take it you don't much agree with the gentleman escorting her out of Freeside," the King surmised rather obviously.

"He's the bastard who shot me," Six spat, crossing his arms and looking up at the cracked ceiling. Aaron Holmes had said something to him that night at Boulder City.

_I hope you find Benny, and Rachel. I hope you won't judge her too harshly when you do._

Benny and Rachel. Working together. Was that why the two of them worked together? Was that why Benny shot him? Did Rachel ask it as a way of settling some kind of problem the courier and this woman had? Or was it the intention from the beginning?

The answer had done nothing to help push him towards his goal. It had merely muddied it, added another question to a long list. He felt sick. This woman… he could tell he cared about her. It had been her there at Wolfhorn, he knew it.

Wolfhorn? Yes, the ranch with the grave. He knew its name…

Yet she was working with Benny. Did she know the man in his garish suit had murdered Six for the chip? Did she even know how Benny had acquired it? Or had she planned it?

The answers were over the wall. Now he just felt more on edge about retrieving them.

"I think perhaps we can leave it there, for now," the King said finally. "I'll have your passport prepared while you get this information. By the end of the night you'll be in the Strip and you can have your answers."

Six nodded. He didn't like where this was going, but he wanted to finish this tonight. If the King could get a passport by the time Six was back, he'd take it and walk into the neon snake pit to find out just what was going on before dawn broke. "What about Veronica? My friend?"

The King spared a glance out the door. "I can see about it, but even one can be hard to get on such short notice. If you want two it's gonna take a while longer," he warned.

The drifter paused a moment, looking out the door to where his two companions waited. The clock was ticking. He wanted answers. Badly.

"I'd prefer two, but the sooner you can get one the better. If Veronica has to wait a little while to follow me in, then… I'll talk to her. I'm sure she'll understand. There a place to sleep here? Think you could put her up?" he questioned.

"If she helps out around the place, I'll be happy to give her a few days stay," the King agreed.

The drifter stood up again and looked down at the King, who looked back at him calmly. "Alright, I'll see what I can do then," he concluded. Stepping towards the door, he paused, curiosity demanding satisfaction. "By the way, what's the deal with this place? It's so… different."

The King chuckled. "Near as I can tell, it was some sort of religious institution." When Six's eyebrow rose he merely chuckled again. "Oh, I know it says 'school' out front, but everything in here seems to be related to the worship of some guy from back in the day. People used to come here to learn about Him, to dress like Him, move like Him. To be Him. If that's not worship, I don't know what is."

"What was he like? Some sort of saviour figure like the Chosen One?" the courier wondered, crossing his arms.

"Not a whole lot to tell. There were only a few books left in here when we found it, and those were rotted away," he admitted, leaning back and tapping his hip. Rex rested his head on it happily. "There were some posters left that were pretty well preserved, which is how we know all this stuff is based on the same guy. The thing of it is, we don't even know what His name was. All the posters just referred to Him as 'The King'."

Nodding, Six gestured towards Freeside's biggest gang leader. "And thus the name."

"Well, that and the giant sign outside. This place could have been 'The King's House of Dog Chow' and I still would have taken the name. But I like to think I keep the memory alive," the King said rather sentimentally.

"The King's School of Impersonation," Courier Six recited, remembering the sign.

The King nodded. "As far as we can tell, the guy that built this place was considered the coolest of the cool, and taught other people how to be more like Him. People would come from all around to learn how to sing, dance, dress, and even speak the way He did."

"You guys really are something else," Six said, impressed. They'd found a Pre-War temple and kept the memory alive while dedicating themselves to the betterment of Freeside.

"We're not just a group of thugs looking for our next fight," the King replied with conviction, standing and following the courier. "The Kings are about an idea, you see?"

They stepped into the foyer where Veronica was waiting, leaning on the counter and reading one of the books Six had collected.

"Where every man is free to follow his own path, do his own thing. Where every man is a king in his own right," the King finished.

Veronica looked up and tilted her head, hearing only the back end of the conversation but clearly intrigued. Six on the other hand, having heard it all, was considerably more impressed.

"Write a book," he instructed. "Just… write a book. Any time I'm in Freeside, you can count on my support."

"Thank you. Thank you very much," the King said, pleased. He turned and disappeared through another door, leaving Six with Veronica and ED-E to discuss their next move.

"So, aside from your new man crush, what's going on?" Veronica said pleasantly, shuffling over to him.

Ignoring her comment, Six struck for the door once again. "One more foray into Freeside. Listen, though, getting two passports is going to be complicated," he said, addressing the point directly before they continued.

The scribe and the eyebot followed. "Which means?"

"Which means it'll be a little longer to get yours. He can get one on short notice, but the other might take a little longer," he explained, striding down the street.

"Oh," Veronica said flatly. "Man, you really know how to make a girl feel like a stray cat."

He wasn't too happy with it either. "Look, I hope you understand, but I can't give Benny more time. I need to get those answers before they slip away again," he said softly, stopping and turning around.

"No, I understand. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" she wondered.

"I asked the King to get you a passport as soon as possible, and he's happy to give you a bed at the school until you get it. Hopefully when you meet up with me on the other side of that wall I'll know who I am," the drifter offered.

She thought for a while, but eventually nodded. "I guess something like that's hard to wait for, huh? Alright, I'll forgive you. But you're buying the first round, and the rooms," she bargained.

The drifter smiled. "Sure. I might be coming into a small fortune soon," he replied, casting a glance to the city, which shone bright and brighter as the last of the sun vanished.

Tonight.

They moved through the streets quickly, heading towards the eastern fringes of town where the NCR squatters generally trickled. Behind the Old Mormon Fort and down a short road was an area that had once been for parking cars. Now the parking bays had piles of blankets and torn mattresses stolen to sit in them. Some were occupied by people, others remained empty and available.

Drum barrels had been gathered and their contents set alight all over the parking lot to provide what little heat they could against the Mojave night. Huddled around the fires were men and women, talking in hushed voices, taking in what little warmth was left before the evening took full hold.

Away from them, sitting against the empty ruins of a collapsed apartment building was another rotting corpse. This one was still alive, mind, one of the unfortunate victims of radiation who hadn't managed to get dying right. A ghoul. Another one.

Clearly that earned him a place apart from the rest of the squatters. The wanderer again found himself unsympathetic. Ghouls were… just wrong.

Entirely for the sake of irony, his stomach rumbled. "Oh," he muttered.

Turning to ED-E, he tapped the little orb prompting it to spin around, and reached into the storage compartment. He produced a box of Fancy-Lad's snack cakes. Yum. Two centuries old. Double yum.

They kept surprisingly well. 'Processed food', the original ingredients blended with all sorts of chemicals to make sure the food was totally immortal. In some places the old stations for making them had gone about their business undeterred by the end of the world and kept trying to even when the ingredients ran out.

He took one of the things from the pack and bit into it. Soft and spongy, with vanilla icing. Pretty damn tasty despite their age. He offered one to Veronica. They came in packs of four, meaning two each, and they were worth savouring.

For a while Six thought about whether or not to talk to the ghoul. Being excluded like that could easily become an angle from which he could play off; everyone's faster to betray their fellow countrymen when they're still blinded by prejudice and injustice. The thought of it didn't sit well with him, though. Besides, what would stop him from lying?

No, better to ask someone potentially more trustworthy.

Beyond the parking lot, in the fading light, the two young children who had been chasing the rat were sitting on the street observing some kind of creature or another as it made a slow travel across the road.

Striding over towards them, Six finished the first of his snack cakes and took another, handing the box to Veronica. It probably seemed suspicious, but he could sway it to look like generosity.

Squatting down near the kids he squinted to see what they were looking at. Some kind of small insect, if such things still existed with the war's nasty after-effects. "What're we doing?" he asked.

The young boy looked over at him. "Lookin' at bugs," he stated simply.

"Fair enough," Courier Six replied. "Is it exciting?"

"Oooh, I used to love doing this," Veronica said stepping over to them. "I used to set them on fire with the laser pistols they had at the shooting range. 'course once I found one that could actually set _me _on fire I stopped. Karma, it's not funny."

The four of them shared a laugh, and Six took the opportunity to present the other snack cake. Pulling it in half and wincing as crumbs fell onto the ground, he showed the kids both of them.

"I was hoping you two could give me a little bit of information on the NCR guys over there and any of their buddies. I've got a friend who says there are soldiers coming through here, and if you can give me a little information then you guys can have one half each. Deal?" he said, confident that the ancient food, which still tasted better than a lot of modern edibles, would win the kids over.

It did. Both nodded, and the young girl piped up first.

"They come through the gate sometimes," she said. "Little groups. They talk to the people over there and then go somewhere."

"Do you know why they come in?" the courier pressed.

She shook her head. "The grown-ups talk about the bad people here and how they need to go away. They don't like them."

"Yeah, they say stuff like 'these punks can't tell me what to do!' and some of them use words I'm not allowed to say," the boy joined in, happily divulging facts in exchange for the food. "They don't like those guys with the weird voices especially."

The Kings. No, they weren't getting along well with the NCR squatters.

"What do you mean they want them to 'go away'?" Veronica wondered.

"Didn't you know?" the boy said, surprised. "The soldiers want to make Freeside safe, so they're gonna kick those weird talking guys out. Then everyone can be happy!"

The seeker and the scribe exchanged looks of concern.

Six handed the cake halves to each of the children. "You guys have been a big help," he said quietly. "Now, don't you go telling anybody about this, and there might be some more in it for you. All secret, okay?"

Both nodded enthusiastically, already wolfing down the cakes voraciously.

They left them to it, standing, turning, and leaving. The seeker spared a glance over at the ghoul, who stared at him without emotion as he passed. Part of his face seemed to be paralysed, in addition to the already noticeable condition of being a ghoul. Double the exclusion, even ghouls would consider him ugly. Poor bastard.

But his life wasn't important to Courier Six right now. Something else was. A woman named Rachel. A man named Benny. A chip made of platinum. The heart of New Vegas, waiting for him over the wall. The answers he so desperately wanted…

"The King isn't going to be happy," Veronica pointed out. "They're pushing for a fight over Freeside."

"Looks like the rumours hold some weight. NCR has its eyes on Vegas," Courier Six said, looking up into the sky.

"I guess you'll be going in then," Veronica chuckled.

"It's time for answers. It's been nearly a month now, and he's probably getting comfortable. Rachel is there too," he replied.

One last trip to see the King, and he was ready. Passport in hand, a flimsy little thing adapted from Pre-War passports, once used to travel to places that no longer existed.

Veronica and ED-E stayed behind to help the Kings, to spend a moment resting while the courier moved on to his destination. The drifter following his road. The wanderer stalking his prey. The seeker reaching his prize.

Above him the moon was massive, pale, glowing. Its light illuminated the whole street, but nothing moreso than Courier Six, the grey coat worn by his father and his father before him over his shoulders, a relic in the blade at his waist, a hereditary revolver sitting on the opposite side. On his back a gift from a new ally, a friend from the now. On his forehead a scar, an eclipse where two bullets had tried and failed to slay him.

He strode down the street with purpose, strength, and conviction. Towards his past, lying in the heart of a city built atop the vices of the Old World. A monument to sin, a snake pit, and there he'd have his answers, wrenched from the mouths of the city's lords if he needed to.

Courier Six, the man who died, presented his passport. The mechanical guard approved it, and he stepped through the gate and onto the Strip.

_~King of Hearts: A face card among the traditional French deck, equating the number thirteen. It represents a figure of intelligence and authority that is difficult to understand. In some decks he has been portrayed as wielding both a sword and a lyre, contrasting battle with music._

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><p><em><em>Phewwww. I forgot how much fun it was to write that chapter.

Next week, New Years eve, we have the last episode for this plot arc, within which we'll find a number of little easter eggs for those familiar with both the lore and another Fallout story some of you might have heard of.

Now, if it's not too much to ask; reviews, guys! I'm not expecting you all to give me a detailed character analysis, but even something as small as "I like this" is encouraging, especially when there's thirteen of them.

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did writing it, and I hope even moreso that you'll enjoy the next chapter even more than I enjoyed frantically tapping away at it by three in the morning (which was more than you might think).


	16. Fifteenth Hand: Second Joker

InfiniteDragon: Thanks. I know amnesiacs are hard to pull off well, but I like to think I've done alright with Six. It's an aspect that I think helps a story that people otherwise know large chunks of stay fresh. I could have just given Six a dark and mysterious past and have people around him gradually coax it out, but I think people have done that so often in fear of the amnesiac storyline that it's even more cliche.

DOW: It's part of my staying faithful to the original narrative. It helps keep everything well grounded in what New Vegas was when we all played it, and gives me the most solid foundation to build on. Another part is a simple "I don't want to distort the characters". I take some liberties, but some of the bigger players in New Vegas have some rather specifically crafted lines and little metaphors and references slipped in. I don't want to nudge something out of place there. Comes back to staying faithful. The last part is I enjoy the challenge of not just being able to blitz out any line to work with what the originals are saying. It's a personal challenge to get the right lines and then work my way into it and make it natural. Makes the writing more fun for me, and hopefully isn't too shabby for the readers.

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><p><em><strong>Fifteenth Hand – The Second Joker<strong>_

_8th November, 2281_

The moon was enormous and round, the Lucky 38's beautiful pale halo in the evening light. The sky above was cloudless and filled from one end of the world to the other with the stars humanity had once dreamed of reaching, yet had killed themselves before even beginning to truly work on that goal. Their eyes and weapons turned on each other before they could contest lands they'd never touched.

Starlight, beautiful and all-reaching, competed and lost with the lights of Vegas. Blazing up into the sky and bringing about a permanent day into a city that never slept, the lights illuminated the lives of the men and women who walked this one solitary street, a shard of the Old World preserved and rebuilt.

Gilding the street, displaying their glory, the casinos, hotels and venues of New Vegas lined up along the Strip displaying themselves like the prostitutes below them, proudly declaring they could do what no other establishment could, offering the best experience any man (or woman) could have right there within those doors for a modest sum.

Behind the Lucky 38, which easily dwarfed the other buildings of the strip, was a large hotel with its walls made to look like cards. The name, displayed over a sign consisting of a full house, three aces and two kings, was 'The Stacked Deck'. A hotel for winners it claimed, the higher floors for those with a reputation.

Opposite the Lucky 38 was Gomorrah, named for some kind of bed of sin from some Old World storybook. It lived up to the name. The women flaunting their features in front of it were literally wearing next to nothing. One was adorned in little more than black tape. Within was worse, beyond any doubt. It advertised itself with this, within it could only be worse.

Further down the Strip was the Ultra-Luxe, a massive L-shaped building, with a large and extravagant fountain in its front. Currently three NCR soldiers were dancing topless in it, despite the admonishing of both their superior (notably female, the male soldiers with them didn't seem to have any problem with the merriment) and the warnings of the Securitrons.

And Securitrons there were. From top to bottom, the Strip was crawling with the machines, stern-faced policemen watching from cold screens and keeping an eye (scanner?) out for any threats to the rules and security of this private little empire that two nations were busy shedding rivers of blood over.

Painted deep blue, the 'Aquatic Gala' was a comparatively small building alongside its neighbours, with two glass pillars filled with pure water rising from the concrete ground into the arch above. Lights shone through it, making it seem to glow, further advertising its purity, and within it promised further displays. Once, before the end of days, it was probably filled with creatures that survived in the water. Now, so many of those species had died, and those in the gala display had probably been quickly eaten when the world ended and Vegas was left stunned, but alive.

The fires and insanity in a world that had lost all structure and order was still evident, even as the buildings were undergoing renovations. Mankind, in its infinite ability for both creation and ruin, had seen fit to tear down one of the few remaining cities of a forgotten time through territory conflicts and petty disputes.

War, man's eternal companion.

The Hangman's Harvest was a testament to what Vegas had done to itself for surviving, a broken building with the titular hangman, a wooden figure hanging from a noose above the door, torn in half. The building was missing every floor above the first, leaving the sky open, and the walls had been ripped open. Remodelling was underway, but it was a low priority location, and for now it was just an eyesore, the corpse of an eatery and bar lying with blank eyes in the street.

Further back, past a score of drunk tourists giggling and debating which casino to lose their money to next, was an enormous pillar, atop which was mounted something that should have meant salvation.

The massive lead and steel door to a Vault, the great underground bastions of pure humanity, where the men and women who had survived the Great War hid while the skies burned, was held in place like a cheap sign. In bright neon it declared itself as a theme hotel: Vault 21, for those who wanted to know what it was like to live underground, oppressed by the very air, heavy with radiation above.

Somewhere that should have been safety, a place for the descendants of the world to rest and sleep until they could once again stand upon the earth, wiser for their mistakes, and hopefully not beyond salvation.

And now they'd left their Vaults, lived in the wastelands, and here they were, fighting over resources and territory again, California and Arizona smashing each other against Hoover Dam, Nevada's keystone.

A building towards the back of the Strip surrounded by a chain link fence was modestly declared as the New California Republic Embassy, where negotiation between the men and women of the NCR met with the agents of the Strip to discuss politics and concessions for both sides.

None of it mattered. Amongst various other buildings rose a pair of towers, their roofs crowned with bright lights of blue, green, yellow and red shining into the sky. The northeast corner of the taller building had been opened to the elements via explosions or years of neglect, but the building seemed to otherwise be in good condition. Protruding from the front of the two buildings, linking them together with a large circle coated in flashing neon, was the entrance to the Tops. The sign before it declared its name vertically with five large blocks of colour, one black encompassing 'The' and each letter of 'Tops' earning its own, going from blue to green to yellow to red with bright white lights illuminating it and alternating as if the very name sparkled.

An overhang above the doors flickered yellow, the light flowing along in a sequence to make the entrance all the more appealing.

The drifter didn't need to have the doors appear more appealing to want to pay the casino a visit, though. He had eyes only for The Tops, and his focus was like a knife, cutting directly through the lights and distractions of the Strip to Benny.

His coat billowed behind him dramatically, and he chuckled as he walked at how much this seemed like something out of a story. If the man he'd met on the road to Boulder City was true to his word, it would be a story one day. One told through song, and exaggerated as the years went on. Eventually there'd be multiple myths that contradicted each other before finally they all winked out, too far into the past to be remembered.

Striding down the road, Six tilted his head as a man in a suit watched him pass. His hair was stark white underneath a high-class looking hat. His face was thin and narrow, and his eyes were two shards of ice, crystalline and sharp.

The two watched each other as Six passed. The man adjusted the tie on his expensive looking suit and grinned, his mouth twitching just a fraction as he bared his teeth in a simple facial expression that said everything at once; it was the grin a man gives an old friend he's just seen again unexpectedly. The sort of grin that betrays knowledge of things to come, and silent glee at watching them unfold. A grin that was pleasant surprise at seeing the courier make it this far. A grin that challenged him to go further.

But in addition, it had an edge of savagery, of a mentality that only the cunning and strong survive. A law of primal nature. It was a fox bearing his teeth.

Just as he'd done the day Courier Six met him in the dead town of Nipton. They stared at each other, each gauging the other. Neither wished for conflict, at least with each other, but neither could they ignore that their very presence issued the other an unspoken challenge.

"Fox," the wanderer said quietly.

The grin never even faltered. "And what shall I call you?" came the voice, bitter liquid flowing through the air like a python to strike. "Perhaps you are a wolf, howling come the full moon and bounding the wastes alone without purpose."

Six didn't stop. Whatever the Fox was doing in New Vegas, it didn't matter over Benny's presence.

The Fox watched him go, the eyes of the Legion upon the back of the courier. The second time he'd watched a courier's back and known the Mojave was about to change.

One of the Securitrons paused as Six walked past him, its screen flickering. He ignored it.

The courier reached the door of the Tops just as it warped, the policeman for just a moment becoming some cracked, snarling corruption in the screen, and then it was gone, replaced by a beaming cowboy, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Pausing, the courier realised he'd be unable to smuggle weaponry like his hunting rifle into the Tops. At best, his father's old weapon would get in, but some of his other weapons wouldn't make the trip. He paused, and found a small patch of flora brightening the Strip with green. Underneath it was real dirt and soil, not just sandblasted desert earth. It was probably watered daily.

Finding a spot underneath one of the larger plants, the wanderer knelt down and, as quietly and inconspicuously as he could, which was admittedly far from what he'd hoped to accomplish, he placed his machete and rifle in the garden, pulling what he could of the greenery to cover them.

Not at all optimal, but if he had to leave in a hurry he wasn't stopping to ask casino security for his rifle and blade back, and this was near enough to the door that he'd easily collect it on his way in a worst case scenario.

He turned once again, sparing a glance back towards the Fox, but he was already gone, vanished into the people of Vegas. The Securitron nearest him displayed nothing but a policeman who seemed uninterested in him.

It didn't turn back into the cowboy until he turned and entered the Tops, pushing the large glass door aside and walking in confidently.

"Hey hey, fella, welcome to the Tops hotel and casino!" greeted a suave, brown haired man wearing a well-kept white pinstripe suit. "I'm going to have to ask you to hand over any weapons you might be carrying."

"Of course," Six said with a smile, reaching into his coat and pulling his two pistols from their holsters and placing them on the counter. Not a word was mentioned of the revolver.

The entrance was large, with a dividing wall separating the front desk with the rest of the casino. Beyond the place was alive with the sounds of laughter, talking, roulette tables spinning, glasses clinking together, and the footsteps of the rich and recently poor.

"Smooth and easy, just the way I like it. Don't worry, they'll be as safe as kittens till you're ready to leave," the man said, happy by Six's willingness to submit to the request.

"Great, thanks," Six replied with a smile, trying to remember what a kitten was.

The greeter showed he wasn't as simple as Six had hoped he'd be. "A word of friendly advice: if you happen to 'stumble across' any weapons during your stay here, well… just don't wear them openly. You dig?"

The seeker smiled coyly. "I'll be a good boy," he lied.

"Have a good time, baby," the greeter replied, viewing the man in front of him as another wastelander prone to mischief, but mostly harmless.

That was Courier Six alright: mostly harmless.

Walking around the wall that stopped the view of the floor beyond, Six was greeted with the Tops in full. To his left was a staircase heading up to a balcony that overlooked the gambling floor, with a door declaring that it led to the Aces Theatre. Underneath the second floor was the bar, nestled in behind the staircase with a smiling young woman dressed in an exquisite black dress.

To his right was the gambling floor itself, filled with patrons playing all kinds of gambling games. Blackjack was the most popular, with roulette sparkled about and lines upon lines of slot machines on both walls running up the length of the room.

Pacing along the floor were the Chairmen, all wearing the white pinstriped suits with well-conditioned hair that displayed sheen previously unheard of in the wastes. They were clean-shaven, well groomed, and their suits displayed not a hint of grime. Well and truly removed from wasteland society were the people of Vegas.

He was in the Tops, but now he needed to locate Benny and the chip. The first and most obvious place to look would be the suites. Holmes had been clear when he said that Benny was the leader of the Chairmen, which made him owner of the Tops and one of the four most powerful figures in Vegas. He'd have the biggest, most extravagant suite on the top floor.

Striking out, Six stepped down onto the gambling floor and began moving amongst the patrons. They barely even noticed him, so lost were they in the games of chance playing out in front of them. That seven could be a blessing or a curse, depending on the next card on top of it. If that queen met a king on the table he'd be in the money, unless that bragging bastard wasn't just bluffing and he honestly had two more in hand. Was it worth the risk? He could bet it on even reds, hope for the best, and see if lady luck decided to repay him, or he could play it safe and just go even numbers, black and red, hoping for the best.

He froze in place and promptly slipped onto a table of poker players as a king dropped onto the table. Patting his coat he feigned forgetfulness and claimed he'd merely forgotten to go and purchase chips for playing and would instead watch a few rounds before going and getting a stake in the games.

Out of the corner of his eye, flanked by bodyguards dressed in black suits with dark glasses and pistols openly on display, was the snake himself.

He was wearing the same suit, checkers of white and black, and had the same approachable face with scheming eyes.

Six kept his head down and his eyes on the table, listening. Nothing could be heard above the hum of conversation on the floor, but he seemed to be moving about and talking to the patrons. Exchanging pleasantries, encouraging gambles. Being a good host, it seemed.

An ace followed the king, and what lay on the table was rather impressive: the king of diamonds, two jacks, one of clubs and the other hearts. The only hand he could see belonged to a young woman wearing a light blue dress that was surprisingly low cut. Briefly, Six admired her style under the guise of checking her hand, containing a ten of diamonds and a nine of clubs. If a queen found its way onto the table, she'd be in good standing; otherwise she was just chasing vapours.

Benny was moving away from him again, drawn by a man who'd just lucked out on twenty two red at the roulette table.

The queen of spades hit the table, and the woman's eyes widened. She'd been betting big on this round, and it had just paid off. The best her opponent could muster was two kings, clashing the suicide king (hearts) with his diamond counterpart, dominated by her alliance.

Drunk on victory, she grabbed the nearest person, who happened to be a courier, and kissed him.

Caught completely off guard, Six spent a few moments enjoying it before she let go, apologised, smiled, and raked in her money, making the smart move to get out now while she still had triple what she arrived with.

Seeing an opportunity he slipped from the table, sparing a glance over to Benny and longing to do nothing more than draw his revolver and plant two poetic rounds straight in his brain. Benny used a pea-shooter. Six's weapon was custom – it fired goddamn rifle shells. Good luck surviving that you cunning fuck.

Following the young woman he asked what she planned to do with her winnings. Flustered, she admitted she hadn't actually thought further than living better. She confessed that originally she'd just been another lady of the night working at a brothel in Nipton. Six's teeth clenched as she said it. He recommended she find somewhere else to live.

To his surprise, she didn't seem bothered by the destruction of her name. In her own words, she'd hated every minute of her life there, but she'd done it so that she could earn the caps for this night, and so she had. Now she'd never need to do anything so base ever again. Unless, of course, she wanted to, but that would be without considering money as an aspect of the 'transaction'.

Benny was coming back along the gambling floor, talking to the dealer at the table Six had been sitting at. His eyes widened as the dealer explained something to him, and the courier hoped that it was over the woman's success at the table and not the courier who'd been watching her play.

Behind the bar was a short hallway that ran around a corner, with a sign claiming that they were the elevators to the other floors of the building.

A child was poking his head around the corner and watching the courier as he moved towards them, promptly disappearing into one of the elevators and closing the doors as Courier Six approached. They must have been keeping the children on the floors above all the gambling to keep them out of the way. He wondered what life would be like, growing up in Vegas.

One man was standing in front of an elevator marked for the executive suites, while most of the rest all seemed to be general elevators for floors one to twelve. The one that the young boy had disappeared into was another restricted access elevator, though nobody guarded this one. Who would want to visit the floor that was mostly kids?

Six strode towards him, and he brought his hand up and smiled amiably. "Sorry, cat. Executive suites are for Chairmen and VIPs only. If you wanna go up you gotta have business up there, and I'd know if we'd given you a complimentary suite," he explained, clearly bearing no malice towards this wasteland wanderer who he assumed just made a mistake.

"I prefer to think of myself as more of a dog," Six said thoughtfully. "If I recall, cats were the ones that lounged around and looked nice and enjoyed lethargic and indulgent lifestyle, weren't they? Whereas dogs fight, walk miles, and track figures they recognise across vast distances."

The man paused thoughtfully. "Hmm, but it doesn't have the same ring to it, does it pal?" he said eventually. "I mean, 'hey cat' is pretty suave if I do say so myself, but 'hey dog' just doesn't have the same ring. It sounds… less classy."

"I agree. Huh, what's that supposed to be?" Six said, gesturing further down the hallway to a peculiar looking plant. Something that might have once belonged in a different country entirely, cultured here in Vegas specifically for the sake of being out of the ordinary.

The man tilted his head to look down the hallway and Six smashed a can of cram into the back of his head, catching him as he dropped forward, stunned, and giving him a second tap to make sure his eyes closed.

He pressed the button for the lift and spent a few moments waiting for it to appear, holding the man up and resting his head on his shoulder as if they were both drunken patrons.

When the doors opened both men moved into the small space, and Six found the buttons listed up a panel near the doors. He pushed the button for the thirteenth floor and sighed as the doors slid closed.

He felt liquid on his hand, and without even looking he growled. Blood. He struck too hard, and this man was going to end up dying just because he was doing his job. That wasn't fair at all.

Rather than let it happen though, the courier reached into one of his many pockets and withdrew the last of the Fox's healing powder. He'd forgotten he was carrying it for quite some time, having merely stashed it away after using it once. But outside meeting the Legionary had reminded him of the little that was left.

As the lift smoothly pulled itself upwards Courier Six didn't even think twice before kneeling down and applying the salve to the point he'd struck, where the man's head had been cut by the tin can.

Apologising, he ripped off a piece of the man's shirt and held it over the wound while the powder helped the cut heal. Finding a pen in his pocket, he scribbled a small note to the man in the only place he could find to write, and then pulled him up.

He could leave him in the elevator, but there was no guarantee he'd stay hidden long enough for Six to do much more than move down the hallway. Carrying the unconscious man with him wouldn't necessarily work any better, but if the courier was seen making his way down the hallway it would raise an alarm anyway. If he was carrying a member of the Chairmen he could at least twist the situation – try to lie his way through and claim he was taking the man to his room, or if it came to it, use the poor man as a human shield.

If he could avoid it, he'd just leave him asleep on one of the beds to recover in time and hopefully read the 'SORRY' Six had left on his forehead in the mirror.

Assuming he could understand it as written backwards. He'd forgotten about that. Oh well, it was the thought that counted. Right?

Holding him up, Six dabbed the blood off his neck with the scrap of shirt and pulled his expensive suit over the tear to hide it. His hair was a little messed up, but as far as the story went he'd ended up drinking too much and wound up falling backwards into a patron.

Not bad for a spontaneous story.

The elevator doors opened.

Dressed in white suits were two more members of the Chairmen. Security for the upper floor maybe, as Six could see the gun holster on display through his open blazer. Immediately it seemed his story was going to be questioned.

"What the hell?" one demanded, reaching into his suit.

Keep it cool. Don't make it into a big thing. "Hey. This guy here must have been drinking or something, because he got pretty loud downstairs. One of the girls down there won big, and he made a big deal about it. Ended up tripping over and falling backwards into me. Passed out," he said, hoisting the man up.

"What?" the other man asked, suspicious but not immediately going for his weapon like the first had. "He just got drunk?"

"Hey, don't ask me!" the courier said as if he were irritated by the whole thing. "Bastard just crashed into me and we both hit the floor! Figured I'd get some gambling done before coming up here to see Rachel about her delivery, and I end up carting this guy with me and cutting the merriment short."

Success. Rachel's name clearly shifted the attitude in both of them. "That babe with the Followers that Benny's been swinging with?" one asked.

"Yeah. I'm here on courier business," Six replied, which was true. Grunting and pulling the man up again, he continued, "can we get this guy somewhere to lie down? I wasn't sure which floor he was supposed to be on so I just brought him up here, I figure it's the Chairmen's floor, right?"

"Floors eight and up," the more suspicious man stated.

Six pushed the man forward; letting the other two catch him. "Great, then you figure out where his room is. Where's Rachel, I need to make this delivery as fast as possible," he said, putting on the stressed courier tones.

Flustered by catching the unconscious security guard and then put off by this man's irritated tone, the less suspicious man gave in.

"Benny said to get her whatever she wants. He'd get angry if we stopped a delivery," he pointed out.

"We could just take it to her ourselves," the other said flatly.

"Not if we're busy getting this guy down to his room."

"Looks, if you're not going to help me, then fuck this, I'm leaving and you can explain to this 'Rachel' chick why she didn't get her package," the courier spat, putting on the pressure.

"She's in the master suite," the less suspicious man said. "The boss seems to really like her."

"She isn't even here right now!" the suspicious one stated.

The wanderer pushed past them both and turned to look down the hallway. "Which way is it?" he demanded.

The more helpful one nodded to him. "Keep going the way you're going. Double doors, it's got a little sign on the door," he said.

Growling, the other pulled the unconscious body into the lift. "Can't believe you're just going to let a courier walk around up here."

"What's he going to do? He's a friggin' mail man."

"Dude, you don't mess with mail men. You know what they have to go through to make some of those deliveries?"

"Not really. Shut up and help me keep him up. Ninth floor…"

The doors closed, and Six kept moving down the hallway. Hopefully his friend would stay unconscious for a while. He paused for a brief moment.

'SORRY' was still written on his forehead.

He didn't encounter any other guards between the elevator and the master suite. The hallways were white and cream-coloured, impressively decorated with Pre-War paintings that had survived. One was a green field, a rare sight now, and another depicted some kind of four-legged animal running hard. Courier Six didn't recognise it.

The master suite itself was held closed by great big mahogany doors, polished smoothly and locked with a key that the courier didn't have. Not that he'd ever expected to find himself in possession of it either.

The guard said Rachel wasn't here, and he'd seen Benny on the floor below, which meant that the suite should have been empty. He tried not to think of why Rachel was sharing a suite with Benny, and consoled himself by promising that soon he'd have his answers.

Finally, Courier Six would have a conscious answer to his life.

He picked the lock, finding it surprisingly easy to slip an ancient, rusted paperclip into the door and twist the lock with a pencil. It took a few moments as he attempted to get it right before finally he heard a click, pushing on the lock. The clip broke and remained there in the door, and Six pushed one of the two doors open and slipped inside, making sure the rusted piece of metal wasn't sticking out.

Benny's room was surprisingly small. A book case sat along the right wall, ending in a door that led into a bathroom. The carpet in here was red as well. The left of the room was dominated mostly by the leader of the Chairmen's bed, a large thing with impressive emerald sheets and a thick blanket over the top, as if it were necessary in this place. It looked incredibly comfortable though, especially to the sort of person for whom a dirty mattress was a luxury.

To the right side of the bed was an alcove that indented back into the wall behind the bathroom. Hanging from several nails hammered into the wall was an enormous flag displaying a silver snake coiled around an enormous ace of spades.

Above the book case was a window staring out over the western side of Vegas, over the lights at the edge of Vegas and into the darkness of Westside. Beyond that the hills of the Mojave vanishing away into Red Rock Canyon to the west. A place that he had once called his home.

"Howdy. My name is Jed Masterson, and I'm a caravan boss for the Happy Trails Caravan Company."

The seeker nearly exploded out of his skin, spinning in place and nearly falling over himself. A radio that had been playing music a moment ago had suddenly switched abruptly to some kind of advertisement broadcast. Six double checked that the door was shut tight and resumed panting his lungs out.

"If you're hearin' this, I have a job offer for ya; Happy Trails is organising an expedition into Utah, off the Long 15, and we need people."

The radio was sitting on a desk to the left of Benny's bed, atop which sat a disorganised pile of paper and several different pens of separate colours.

Most of them were just profit margins for the Tops, and one was some kind of awful poem about…

"Yes Man?" the courier chuckled, confused by the odd title. It seemed pointless, until he saw another line. "Born in cables and wires, a Follower midwife?"

"We're lookin' for caravan guards, prospectors, couriers – if you're used to humping it across the wastes, straight towards trouble, we want you. On the other hand, if you're a greenhorn or a city slicker spinnin' tales about your skills, you can kindly go hang."

He skimmed over the next line; something put together poorly and ended with 'knife'.

"If we like your gumption, we'll pay you square and treat you fair. Find me – that's Jed Masterson – at the Northern Passage if you're interested. Luck to ya."

Northern Passage.

Six looked up from the desk and turned around. The flag. Silver snake?

No.

"Platinum," Six breathed, moving around the bed and approaching it. Nothing held it in place on the ground, which made it easy for him to pull it aside just like Benny had many times before and reveal the scratched metal door behind it.

He pushed it open and stepped beyond into the darkness of the room beyond.

"Hey! Hi there, good to meet you! What can I do for you today?" came a surprisingly happy sounding voice beyond.

Six's eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light, but one thing obvious right from the onset was the television screen of a Securitron. However instead of a policeman or a cowboy this one displayed a rather crude smiley face.

He couldn't help himself. "And what the hell are you?" he asked.

"Good question! My function is to monitor Mr House's data network and decode his encrypted transmissions!" the robot beamed… proudly? "Allow me to introduce myself! I'm a PDQ-88b Securitron, but you can call me Yes Man!"

The drifter just stared at the enthusiastic machine. As his vision adjusted he took the moment to glance around the room. One wall was almost entirely computer screens and terminals, flashing and flickering with all sorts of code that Six wasn't even going to begin trying to understand. Against the wall opposite them was a bed, pulled from another room. Small, single-person, with thick warm covers.

Another elevator door sat at the back of the room, though somehow the courier doubted this ran down to the other floors open to the public members of the Tops.

"It's what Benny always called me," the robot offered, correctly assuming Six's silence was partially caused by his disbelief. "Probably because I'm programmed to be so helpful! He was around not too long ago. He's probably down on the casino floor now."

"Yeah, I saw him there, actually," the courier said, wondering how long it would be before Benny deciding to come back up. It was getting late in the evening, possibly even midnight by now. He could check the massive convenience machine on his arm for both the time and his exact coordinates if he felt the need, but somehow it couldn't topple the importance of the here and now. This machine… it was programmed to be helpful?

"You can wait for him here, if you like. I'm incapable of asking you to leave," Yes Man said happily. It seemed he was incapable of dropping the enthusiastic tone either.

"How did Benny manage this? To steal a Securitron? I mean, what are you, exactly? A corrupt AI?" the courier pressed.

"Oh, he had some help – a lady friend of his! She came to stay with us, and she's been sleeping right here in this room!" Yes Man happily divulged.

He didn't need to ask more about that. He knew who she was, and what she'd done. How that'd helped Benny, exactly, he had yet to find out. Time to go with the big question.

"What is the platinum chip?"

"Benny had me look into it a bunch of times! It's a data storage device, kind of like a holotape, but a lot more advanced! As for what's on it, well… I'm not sure exactly, but Mr House really wanted it!" Yes Man explained. "Did you know that Mr House spent eight hundred and twelve thousand, five hundred and forty five caps hiring salvage teams to find the platinum chip- just in the last year alone? Of course you didn't! Or that there were seven couriers, but six of them were carrying junk? How about their exact routes, and the mercenary teams that screened them?"

His mouth was dry. Information stood out all around him, information on just what was happening. Something stood out though. "Seven couriers?"

Yes Man did something that resembled a nod. "I knew all that. Pretty smart, huh?" he beamed.

"Only six couriers were hired," Six pointed out.

The Securitron paused. "Haha, is that a joke? If it is, it's very funny!" he said. Six could swear that behind the programming forcing him into pleasantry the robot was wishing it could scream at him about how it could not possibly be incorrect.

"I know there were only six. My delivery order said as much. Six packages for six couriers. What's this seventh?" he asked.

"I really don't think I'm wrong on this, but if you insist, you must have good reason!" Yes Man happily conceded, violent rage not even slightly betrayed in his face. "See, right here, seven couriers on the list! One was hired to carry a pair of fuzzy die – ain't that funny? Another took a chess piece. Oh, this one was carrying a marble! And look, courier six, carrying the platinum chip! Oooh, I always loved that one. Courier two was carrying a deck of cards. I think Benny actually ended up stealing that one on the road too… and… huh…"

Yes Man fell quiet, and his face flickered on the screen.

"What?" Six demanded. "Where's courier seven? What was he delivering?"

"There, uh… there was no courier seven. I must not have seen it in the data!" the robot said, back-pedalling on his previous certainty. It probably didn't make him any happier inside knowing he'd been correctly accused of being wrong. "There's only… courier six and courier six."

The screen went fuzzy for a moment.

"What?" Courier Six demanded. "What, what, what?"

"It's strange!" Yes Man enthusiastically agreed. "It lists two different courier sixes! Hmmm… one must have dropped the delivery order, but the fact he was picked remained on the file! So the second six must be the one I helped Benny ambush!"

Oh this truly was quite a night.

"You what? You're the one that set that up?"

"Yup! Poor guy probably didn't know what hit him!"

Courier Six glared at the screen. "Actually, it's one of the few things I do know. Everything else disappeared when the bullet struck. Benny ambushed _me_."

"Hahaha! I know that's not true, because you still have a head!" the robot deflected.

Six stepped closer and showed the machine his scar. The eclipse. "I am Courier Six."

"Well, technically you're Courier Seven," Yes Man said, helpfully pointing out that he was the second six.

"Six," the courier spat. "Six, six, six, six, six, six, six, six."

The screen warped again. "Hahaha. That's not funny. You getting shot in the head. I really shouldn't have taken so much pride in how I set that up, huh? I feel really bad right now. I mean, I didn't bat an eye – not that I could have – when Benny pointed out I could set him up to ambush Jacob on his way to you. In hindsight, that's probably really cruel, just murdering people over objects. How senseless, haha!" Yes Man happily declared, lying through his smiling and unmoving mouth.

Rachel had helped program this pile of scrap, and it had in turn used the data it could access to set up his murder. Why would she do that to him? Had he wronged her? Did she even know what Benny had done? If the chip was a storage device what did it go to? What was Benny's grand plan?

Then he realised this machine was actually incapable of providing anything but a true answer to a question, provided it knew the answer. Wait…

"Jacob?"

"One of the couriers! Doctor Jacob. Benny ambushed him like he did you," the robot explained happily.

"How did you…?"

"Of course I knew the Doctor's name. It was on the list of couriers!"

His gun was in his hand and pointing at the machine so fast even the courier barely had time to realised he'd gone for it.

"Emergency protocol four! Passcode 'Courier'!"

It wasn't Yes Man speaking, or the courier. It was a woman wearing a white coat.

The robot's screen went black and it drooped down, deactivated. The computer screens in the room all turned off. Everything deactivated.

The gun moved, and Six was pointing straight at her. Rachel.

All three pairs of eyes widened.

"You," Rachel breathed, realising who had appeared. Finally, a chance to see her. She was tall, wearing the kind of clothing that seemed out of place in Vegas. A pair of jeans that had been patched numerous times at the bottoms. Her top was black, some kind of cross between a singlet and a t-shirt. She was a redhead, long and straight locks rolling down her head to rest on her shoulders. Her skin was pale, with the faintest hints of sun exposure. Her eyes…

"Holy fuck," breathed Benny, standing in the doorway behind her.

The gun skipped slightly and instead aimed directly for Benny. Courier Six had absolutely no way to express the variety of emotions that nearly had him vomiting as he saw the two of them.

"What are you doing here?" Rachel asked in disbelief.

"I could ask you the exact same thing," Six spat. "Am I to understand you and I were quite chummy prior to this little adventure? Might I ask what it was I did to you that made you want to throw your cap in the ring with him? I honestly can't remember, but it must have been pretty fucking bad."

She was stunned, like an animal caught in a searchlight. "What do you mean?"

"Easy there, baby. Take it slow and gentle, real gentle, like a little baby," Benny said, trying to diffuse the situation.

"You murdered me," Six stated flatly, keeping the gun perfectly level with Benny's forehead. "Should have used bigger bullets. Don't worry, I'll show you how to do it right. My gun fires rifle shells. They're good for blowing the brains of sneaky little snakes all over their rooms."

"You _what_?" Rachel demanded, rounding on him. So she didn't know. So much of the bitterness slipped away with the knowledge.

"Take it easy there!" Benny said, throwing his hands up. "Obviously I didn't murder you, you're still alive!"

"Oh you sure as hell tried. Two bullets to the cranium, a shallow grave. Didn't count on a Securitron digging me up, huh? Turns out I wasn't dead after all. Might as well have been, but look what I accomplished with amnesia," Courier Six said, moving closer.

Benny was confused for just a moment. "Securitron? House…"

Rachel turned again, looking at him. "No. Please, no," she begged him.

The snake took his chance. Her back was to him. He grabbed Rachel by the throat and placed a gun to her jaw. The same silver killer that had tried to end Six.

"I said nice and gentle now," he warned. "I don't wanna have to try again, but I will if you force me into it, baby. No Follower, no dumb robot, and no courier for House is gonna stop me."

"Stop you doing what?" the courier demanded as Benny began to pull Rachel backwards, slowly edging towards the open door out of his room.

Six followed slowly, keeping his gun trained on Benny behind his human shield.

"Baby, making sure Vegas is free," the snake said as if it should have been common knowledge.

He pulled her back into the hallway and shouted for security as he dragged her to the elevator.

Two men came running down the hall. The two from before, both with guns in their hand.

"Sorry you got twisted up in this scene, kid!" Benny repeated as the elevator doors closed and a third man appeared down the other end of the hall.

He'd stolen everything, and now he was trying to use one of the keys to his past as a human shield. All three Chairmen were aiming for him. He darted back into Benny's room and took his chances on the elevator in the secret room.

Ripping through the flag he slammed the metal door behind him and threw the deactivated form of Yes Man in front of it to try and keep it shut just a moment longer, and then hammered the button for the doors to open.

They did, and he was inside and pressing the only button that worked within moments. Down. And down he went.

Seconds dragged on into hours as the lift descended into he had no idea what. But he hoped it was Benny's escape route.

The doors opened into a dim hallway with lights running along the ceiling giving him just enough to see where he ran.

There was no thought; he just raced down the corridor full tilt, his feet slamming into the metal. Where was he?

It stretched on for a long way, and he feared he was going to wind up outside of Vegas, finding Benny's escape route to have gone too far.

Finally he reached three massive iron doors, 'Z' bolts in place on each one. Handles jutting forward provided him the leverage to wrench them open, and he wasted no time in approaching the first and twisting the locks out of the way and wrenching the door back.

To his surprise, beyond there was nothing. A solid wall of concrete.

He spun and went for the one opposite. The same story. Concrete blocked his exit.

What kind of escape route was this? It went nowhere!

The third door was his last chance, sitting right at the very end of the hallway. He grabbed it, twisted the lock, and pulled it open.

Beyond was a small antechamber and another enormous door. Beyond that was more concrete, but this was debris, mixed with iron and rebar wire.

The doors closed behind him and he could hear them lock, leaving him in the antechamber facing a wall of debris.

One piece of iron seemed to propping up a sizeable slab though, and the rebar had been bent out of the way further along, creating a small tunnel. He wasted no time in squirming through, silently hating the confined space but knowing that he had no choice, and he needed to move quickly.

She needed him.

The last door swung closed behind him, and Benny's escape was sealed once again. Grazed against the rough surfaces, Six emerged at the other side of the debris and shuddered. The corridor wound away to the left, and he followed it, ignoring the strange technological doors to his right and left as he went. They seemed to have pressure pads to open them.

A staircase appeared before him, and before he knew it he was bursting into a gathering hall panting. A party of laughing people paused and turned to look at him.

"The exit! Where!" he gasped.

One man pointed through one of the doors which lead to another staircase, and the courier was off before anyone could say another word.

As he ascended the staircase he began to understand where he was. It became even more obvious when he burst into a large room with what looked somewhat like an enormous drill hanging from the ceiling. The doorway was shaped like a cog, and led on into what seemed to otherwise be a fairly nondescript room, as if it was part of an establishment built to disguise the Vault.

He was still in Vegas!

He burst out of humanity's-salvation-turned-tourist-attraction and swung himself right at the top of another staircase. Panicked and armed, the courier exploded into the lobby of the Vault 21 Theme Hotel. Yawning at the counter, a blonde woman with a fantastic figure wearing a tight blue Vault jumpsuit suddenly jerked awake as a man with a gun tore across the front of her hotel and burst out the door.

The Strip was bright, and the streets were a little less crowded now, as the night wore on. He was near the NCR Embassy, and some of the sober troops were already noticing the armed man who looked like he'd just killed someone, gun in hand and racing out of the building in a manner nothing less than extremely suspicious.

Could this be the courier they'd been ordered to take in for his crimes?

It didn't matter; he had far more important things to attend to. He tore down the Strip, running faster than he'd ever run before in living memory (which wasn't incredibly impressive for him, admittedly).

The Tops appeared, and he frantically looked about. There! Benny had already left, and was pulling Rachel across the Strip towards the Embassy. The only way into the Strip that didn't go through Freeside; the NCR had access to the old Vegas monorail that went from their main camp straight to the Strip.

When he saw the courier he paused, and his smile vanished entirely. Glaring, he pulled the woman back towards the other gate, the one that led into Freeside.

Six wasn't about to let him get away with it, bolting straight towards him, gun aimed towards them both, but he dared not fire for fear of shattering his past and her life.

Benny fired into the air, earning a scream from Rachel as he pressed the smoking barrel to her cheek briefly and then aimed back under her jaw. "I'd stop if I were you!" he called. "In fact, one more step and I really will fire!"

Six made to step forward, and Rachel screamed again as the barrel seared into her flesh again. He stopped, glaring hard at the snake.

"Now, you're going to turn around and walk back down into that Vault, got it? And when you do, I'm gonna leave, and I'll think about letting her go when I do!" Benny said, outlining his plans.

What few people were left on the Strip had taken notice, running for cover but fascinated enough to stay within earshot.

"Not. So. Fast."

A burst of laser fire seared up Benny's back and he screeched, stumbling forward. Rachel burst forward and ran straight for the courier.

"Get down!" Six yelled, intent on making sure Benny didn't make it any further, but he'd already made a dash for the nearest building – the Stacked Deck.

The one who had fired the energy weapon was a robot. A Securitron. Victor. The exact same kind of volley that had saved Six and ED-E back on the road to Nipton.

Just to further allude back to that day, the sound of metal skittering across the ground alerted him to his machete sliding his way. His foot stopped it as it reached him, and he looked up in time to catch his hunting rifle as the Fox tossed it.

His icy blue eyes betrayed no hint of his intentions in gifting Six his weapons once more. "You are quite the vagabond. Our eyes will stay upon you," was all he said.

Behind, the NCR personnel had stirred and were running towards him, calling something out.

He ignored everything else and ran for the hotel Benny had escaped into, confident Rachel would be alright now.

Victor watched him go from the gate to the Strip, beaming just as he always had.

The interior of the Stacked Deck began in a small corridor, with high staircases that ran down to ground level as it opened out into a surprisingly large lobby. The whole establishment alternated colours between red and black, with cards all over the walls. In addition to the standard deck (aces, two to ten, jack, queen, king, joker) there was also a collection of some other collection of cards with odd names listed down the large pillar in the middle of the room – it began at 'Fool', and next on the list was 'Magician'.

In front of the wide pillar was a counter, dark coloured wood that had been smoothed out to allow a bottle of scotch to sit on it. Now only the bottom half remained; the alcoholic liquid and the pieces of glass that together had once contained it lay in a cone spreading from the bottle to the opposite end of the counter.

The pillar ran all the way up through the hotel. The ceiling reached all the way up to the highest floor, with enormous deck cards displayed at each floor, beginning at two for the floor above the ground level and vanishing upwards beyond ten and into the face cards. At the very top were the aces.

Each floor was set out with a balcony running around in a square shape overlooking the lobby with the cards on the pillar displaying which room they were in; each wall of the lobby corresponded to a suit of cards, and the pillar displayed which, with spades facing him as he entered, hearts facing southwest, diamonds northeast, and clubs opposite spades, looking southeast.

He stared around the room, searching for Benny. He could have attempted refuge in any of the rooms, and who knew where he'd planned for another escape route. He could search from two to six and by then Benny would have slipped through an exit he'd prepared on the ninth floor.

"Benny!" he roared to the ceiling.

A hand appeared from underneath the counter and for a moment Six thought it was Benny. He took aim, only to see a wrinkled old man appear, shaking in his plaid jacket. He had wispy grey hair that was probably going to fall out even faster after tonight on his head; his dull blue eyes were filled with fear.

He pointed to one of the two staircases behind Six. "H-he has the suite at the top!" he managed to get out. "A-above the-the aces!"

The courier didn't stop to ask what was above the aces. He'd figure it out when he followed Benny up.

Taking the steps three at a time, he raced up through the tower of the card deck. He wasn't aware, but the interior of the building resembled a style more commonly seen across the oceans in a place that might have no longer existed, called a pagoda.

It meant nothing to him now as he flew past the six and continued up, nearly tripping as he reached seven and heard footsteps above him. Benny must have been just reaching ten above him.

The knowledge propelled him upwards even faster, urging his body on, keeping a tight grip on his pistol. The machete and rifle were both held in their places, machete at his waist and rifle on his back.

Benny's footfalls were getting louder, and Six knew that the Vegas snake was not as fit as the lupine courier. The distance was closing.

He reached the jack just moments after Benny hit the floor above it. In his panic and haste he tripped, and Six grinned savagely as he heard a body drop onto the floor above him and scramble to get back up.

The suit was just disappearing up the next staircase as he followed. He brought his arm up and fired. The sound was deafening, silencing the rest of the world for a few moments as both men continued to run. He'd missed.

The second shot missed as well, but he was getting even closer to the bastard. King loomed ahead, and he was almost right behind him.

His back had been burnt by the laser fire from Victor, and there were several patches on the back of his suit that were increasingly blackened towards the middle, with nasty looking burns at the epicentre.

"Give it up, snake!" Six yelled, firing another shot. Benny ducked, though the courier couldn't tell if it had any effect on whether or not he avoided the bullet.

They both reached the top floor and Six saw that the ceiling was directly above them. There didn't seem to be any floor above aces.

Benny whirled and fired two rounds down at the courier, but his aim was no better than Six's, and he was exhausted already. He was panicking now.

When the courier brought his gun up to aim at Benny, he bolted from his position at the top of the stairs knowing full well the chance that Six's next bullet would be on target if he was standing still. The move saved his life.

As Six hit the landing he could see two more staircases running along the balconies of diamonds and hearts, back towards the southeast side of the building and then turning to run towards each other. They disappeared into the ceiling.

Benny was racing up the northeast staircase, firing back over his shoulder indiscriminately to try and keep Six back, and for the most part it was working exactly as he'd intended it to.

He counted the rounds as they fired. Keeping track where Benny wasn't, he fired the last of his rounds straight at him, taking care to aim for where his heart ought to be through his back.

Yelling in pain, Benny nearly collapsed forward, but by now he was running on adrenaline, and he wasn't going to stop or die until he was put down with vengeance, and Six wasn't about to give up the chase.

The bullet had landed low, just like it did so often. He'd never truly perfected firing the weapon. If he had, he'd forgotten it. When Benny murdered him.

The thought just sparked another storm of fury as Six moved. He didn't expend any words to display his fury. He was closing in for the kill, and Benny was wounded.

Stalk, hunt, kill.

As Benny threw himself up the last few stairs and vanished into the ceiling above Six cast a glance down the long fall over the balcony, all the way down to the bottom where the old man was staring up. Rachel was there too, and their eyes met for just a moment before he too disappeared up into the place above aces.

Her eyes were green. Her eyes were green, and he loved her.

Then he was above the fifty-two hotel suites, to Benny's home away from home.

He'd crashed through the door, and it swung to close behind him, but Six was far too close now for that to work.

He kicked it in, sending Benny flying backwards as he burst into the room.

The Wild Card Suite was quite impressive, coloured with the same motif as the rest of the hotel, but much larger than the other suites, with entire sections of wall being glass instead, leading out onto a balcony that ran around all four sides of the room and over the edge of the hotel.

The Snake crawled backwards along the ground, slithering away from the Wolf as its keen eyes locked onto its prey.

It stalked forward, gun extended, aimed squarely for the forehead of the insidious creature that had attempted to kill it, and had instead only managed to remove the Wolf's memory with its venom.

It wouldn't happen a second time, and both knew it. If the Snake struck true it would make sure the Wolf would never rise again. If the Wolf struck first it would savage the Snake until it was unrecognisable.

"You wanna rethink this," the Snake gasped, holding his pistol up.

The Wolf's revolver never faltered. "I don't think I do. You're going to tell me a few things though, and I know you will because you want every last breath you can get," it snarled in reply. "It might get you just a moment closer to some kind of grand escape, or at least you desperately hope so."

The Snake continued slithering backwards, gasping down his last breaths greedily. The bullet had punched straight into his kidney. He said nothing.

"Why did you kill me for the chip? The robot said it was data, you said it had something to do with freeing Vegas. The hell does that mean?" the Wolf demanded, stepping after the Snake as it attempted to get away.

He slithered back quicker, pulling himself up against the pillar that rose through the ceiling below and up through the suite. "The chip contains a massive store of data," he explained, coughing up blood. His eyes widened and his breathing increased in pace as he began to realise that he really may no longer have had any chance of escaping alive. "Information on House's network. It could get us in! We could cut off his control! Rule Vegas, baby!"

The Wolf looked at him hard. "Usurp House? Mr House, the ruler of Vegas?" he demanded.

"Yes!" the Snake declared. "Don't you get it? We could own this city! Shape it however we wanted! Live like kings! We still can!"

The Wolf bared his teeth. "You tried to kill me to usurp the ruler of New Vegas, and now you're asking me to help bring him down?"

"Imagine what the two of us could do!" the Snake tempted. "The lords of the Strip! With Yes Man and the Securitrons we could take the whole Mojave!"

The Wolf stared at the silver weapon the Snake was pointing at him. A venomous fang. "See? We could work together!"

"Toss me the chip."

"What?" the Snake stammered.

"Give me the platinum chip," the Wolf said clearly. "Give me the platinum chip and your weapon, and you can walk right out of here. Leave New Vegas, and go somewhere else. I heard they're hiring for an expedition into Utah. Maybe you should sign up."

Shaking, the Snake reached into his coat pocket. He produced the chip, exactly as the Wolf remembered seeing it on the night of his death. The only memory to remain after his end. But he was getting them back, bit by bit. Night by night.

He flicked it through the air towards the Wolf, who easily reached out to catch it, taking his eyes off the Snake for a moment. When they returned a split second later, the gun was aimed straight at him.

It clicked uselessly.

"I was paying attention. You weren't," the Wolf said, grinning victoriously, platinum chip in hand.

He advanced on the Snake as he laid uselessly, eyes wide with terror. He'd lost. He'd gambled and lost everything.

The Wolf pointed the barrel of his weapon directly at the Snake's forehead, just moments apart. "I survived two shots to the head, see?" he said, tapping the chip to the eclipse on his face. "Wonder if you can do the same?"

The Snake melted, giving in entirely. "Just make it quick," he begged.

Pressing the barrel directly to his forehead, the Wolf stared directly into the eyes of the Snake. They were brown. Both Snake and Wolf had brown eyes.

He pulled the trigger.

It clicked.

Benny's eyes shot open as Six stood up and moved away from him. "Leave," he demanded.

"You- I- I don't- why- but- I-?" the man jabbered incoherently, in absolute shock.

The courier sighed and looked out over the city. Neon lights shining proudly, kept safe within the walls as the rest of New Vegas decayed beyond it, its people clinging to life as best they could. "Because I'm not you, and I don't intend to become you," he said.

Benny dragged himself to his feet, simply stunned at his reversal of fortune. Silence finally descended upon what had been a long and eventful night.

Leaving the leader of the Chairmen to contemplate his fate, Courier Six opened the glass door leading out onto the balcony and gladly breathed in the night air.

He held the platinum chip in hand and looked up at the Lucky 38. Quite the road he'd walked. Now he knew what he held, and who had hired him. Both the reason he'd died that night at Goodsprings and the reason he'd been saved.

"You showed me mercy," Benny said, stepping out onto the balcony with him. "After everything I did, you showed me mercy."

Courier Six looked down into the street. The NCR soldiers were out in force, as were the Securitrons. The Strip had been stirred up something fierce. "People die every day in the Mojave. Some of them I kill, most of them others kill. There are so many men and women slaughtered that their blood could paint this entire city. Do I really need to add another body to the pile?"

He looked out over the Mojave. Goodsprings would still be fast asleep. Some would just be getting up to tend to the Bighorners. Trudy wouldn't open the bar for another few hours. Sunny and Cheyenne were probably fast asleep. Old Doctor Mitchell wouldn't rise for a long while yet.

Maybe by now Cassidy would have been allowed to actually leave the Mojave Outpost. Ranger Morgan might have been deployed to wherever he needed to be by now too.

Jessup and the Khans would be most if not all of the way back to Red Rock Canyon, to report in on the failure of their mission and how the man they'd ambushed had not only saved their lives, but had also been an old member.

Aaron Holmes would have reached Camp Forlorn Hope to help with the situation there.

He looked down at the Strip gate in time to see Veronica and ED-E arrive. He might have waved, but there was no way they'd see him. Both were busy taking the sights in. Nowhere else in the world was quite like Vegas, the courier didn't need his memory to tell him that. A jewel of the wastes sparkling brightly and tempting everyone with something – money, sex, drugs, the more novel things like music, a show, or a nice bed, and the less physical things, like answers or a second chance.

Dawn was breaking away to the east, the first filters of light flowing out over the Mojave for a new day.

"A lot more are going to be dead before the end of this war," Benny pointed out. "What's one in a thousand?"

Courier Six reacted faster than Benny could draw his second handgun. The machete slammed into his chest, biting straight through his collar bone and opening his lungs. The gun dropped to the floor, and Six kicked him off the blade, watching him tumble to the floor.

He let the fool lie there, his lungs incapable of holding in air as they filled with blood, both collar bones broken clean. A doctor would have said it was a good thing if he had time to recover; they'd heal well. Benny would have no such chance.

Courier Six reloaded slowly, watching the brown eyes of his would-be killer who had failed time and again as they watched him.

"You just don't know when to fold, do you Benny?" he sighed. "I'd have let you walk right out and spend the rest of your life doing whatever you wanted as long as it wasn't in Vegas. I give you a side pot, and what do you do? You play your bad hand out because it's all or nothing to you. This game was never rigged. You just lost, fair and square."

He pulled the trigger. Twice. Some kind of poetic end some might have said. To Courier Six all it looked like was two rifle shells fired from a revolver ripping open the forehead of a man whose ambition was finally his death.

Unlike Courier Six, Benny would not rise again. The courier picked up the pistol where it lay, looking at it before tucking it under his belt. The deck he'd apparently stolen from 'Doctor Jacob' was in his front pocket. A unique deck, it seemed. Specially made. He decided to hold onto it as a keepsake, both as a way of remembering the Doctor and as a personal memento.

Rachel was waiting in the Wild Card Suite when he stepped back into it. "The NCR troopers outside have orders to shoot you," she warned. "I tried talking to them, I don't know why they suddenly think they have the jurisdiction for this, but they say you caused something terrible. That's all the troopers have been told by the higher-ups. They don't know why, but they're going to kill you anyway."

"Well that's not at all what I was hoping for," he sighed, holstering his weapon. "Is there anything in this city not trying to kill me?"

"I'm not," Rachel offered, giving a small smile.

He grabbed her and kissed her, the words reminding him of what she meant to him.

"You heard what I said to Benny. I lost my memory. I'm getting it back in pieces, but I've been looking for you. Aaron Holmes told me who you were, I kept seeing you in my head, and I've been looking," he blurted in a hurry.

Both paused, and found the bed. Dropping onto it, they both finally breathed evenly, and Six told her the tale of his death and subsequent adventure.

When finally he had finished, they could both hear soldiers below, barking at each other and searching the rooms.

"What are you going to do now?" Rachel asked quietly.

"Escape death again," Courier Six sighed. "But before that, I need to ask: who am I?"

The look on her face broke him. He stood up and began looking around the suite for the escape route Benny had been searching for when he arrived. There was a minibar in one corner of the suite. He tinkered with the bottles, searched for a switch under the surfaces. He found nothing.

The soldiers were getting closer, just following orders without even knowing why they had to kill this courier. Hell, the courier didn't even know why they wanted him dead.

"I'm so sorry," Rachel said quietly.

"Aaron said I was distant," the courier sighed. He turned and looked at the pillar. It was wide. Wide enough to fit a man inside.

She stood up and walked towards him, her dark red hair swishing as she moved, her green eyes focused on him. Jade. That's what they were. He'd always liked those eyes. Loved them.

Just like the bottom floor there was an entire collection of Tarot cards on the side of the pillar facing away from the door. The one that did face it was an enormous blank card. Devoid of meaning, but capable of becoming anything. That was the wild card.

He ran his hands over the Tarot cards.

"Courier…" she began, but she didn't know how to finish. She said it like a name.

"Have I always called myself Courier Six?" he wondered.

She shook her head. "Just 'Courier'. You said you didn't want your real name. Called it your 'old name'. Never wanted it back, even when I asked," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

The Magician was a button. He pushed it, and the blank card on the other side of the pillar swung outwards, revealing another of Benny's secret elevators. "I'm going to come back. I need to leave, be forgotten about. Become just another courier again, instead of 'the Courier'. But I'll be back. Do me a favour; explain everything to Veronica and ED-E. Can't miss 'em, one's dressed in a sack and the other is a flying ball of metal."

"Where will you go?" Rachel asked, pulling him into one last kiss as he stepped into the elevator. The troopers were right below them.

He smiled, pressing the 'down' button "They're hiring for an expedition to Utah."

_~Second Joker: A Wild Card capable of taking any form. The second Joker is referred to as the 'Benny' in Euchre, and is represented in the Tarot by the Magician, a trickster who practices manipulation and deception who is the first major step in the journey of the Fool._

**~Nameless Grave~**

"_All roads wind down to the same spot. The Grave."_

**One**

**The Road of the Fool**

**DUAL JOKERS**

_**[END]**_

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><p><em><strong><strong>_Hopefully you guys didn't find that anticlimactic or too short, it's supposed to be a rapid evening that sort of crashes into itself.

I'll be taking a two week break from here, leaving a gap between arcs and giving me time to go on holiday without needing to worry about keeping ahead of the deadline.

Enjoy your time, and I'll be back soon with the next road in Courier Six's story: The Road of Faith: Honest Hearts.


	17. That It Was Said Among The Nations

__Welcome back everyone, I hope your New Years was as enjoyable as mine. Did anybody spot the references in the last hand, there? There's one to another Fallout fan work that shouldn't be too hard to work out if you're from the corner of the internet I'm frequently found in, and for buffs of the history that never was there's a character far less threatening than he was designed to be encountered for just a few moments - that one you might just see more of later, too.

So obviously we're going with Honest Hearts as our first jaunt away from the Mojave, and for this one I've set up the writing style to be just a little different to reflect the different situation. Hopefully you all like it. For those that do, hopefully it's unique enough to satisfy a different taste, and for those that don't, well at least it isn't too far away from how I normally write. If you don't like this or the way I normally write, I'm gonna politely wonder why you're still reading, and if you've a rebuttal feel free to give it.

But enough rambling. Onwards with the first step in a new journey:

* * *

><p><em><strong>That It Was Said Among the Nations<strong>_

_12th November, 2281_

Jed scratched his dark beard and scrutinised the man before him. The duster, the clear eyes, the strong jaw line.

"You got guts, I'll give you that. You sure you want to jump in blind? Ain't got no questions about where we're going or why?" he asked in his deep, heavy voice.

Courier Six, the man who should have died, turned to look out over the cityscape of Vegas.

Days ago he'd made an escape from the heart of the Old World city, hunted by the soldiers of the New California Republic for a crime he didn't even know if he committed. Whatever he'd done, it had been enough to warrant him death at their hands, a sentence he had no intention of accepting until he could fish more of his past up from their depths within his subconscious.

The mark on his forehead, an eclipse where two bullets had struck one after the other, was imprinted upon his head, a scar earned the night he died and gave up his past to survive beyond the grave.

His past was still there in that city, and it would wait for his return. But he could not return yet, while he was still wanted for both a crime he did not know yet and one he was fully aware of. It had hardly been a quiet affair when he'd finally tracked down the leader of the Chairmen.

He hadn't really thought about where he'd go, where he'd hide. The NCR was large, but it was not omnipotent. He could have hidden somewhere out of their way. He could even have hidden right under their noses for a few weeks and they might not have noticed.

Something in him had wanted to wander, though. He must have inherited that from his father. This expedition to Utah had provided him the opportunity to go somewhere new. Somewhere that was not the Mojave, a land he knew yet did not know. A chance for him to see it in a new light when he returned, and learn of places and people that existed away from its borders.

"I have a rough idea just from listening to you all. Zion National Park, a first step towards establishing trade with… was it New Canaan? Either way, I get the basic idea. You want to build a few extra trade routes for your caravan company," the courier replied.

Jed seemed impressed. He smiled and crossed his arms. "So you're a good listener," he agreed. "Alright, fine, you seem to know what's going on. Better yet, you've got a Pip-Boy."

"I don't actually know how to take it off," Six admitted. "It's like it's sealed to my arm."

The large device latched around the courier's forearm like a heavy wristwatch, with a large, thick screen that displayed vital signs for the person who wore it, recorded audio logs, could download information by linking to whatever computer terminals still worked two centuries after the apocalypse, carried maps of numerous regions of America as it was before the world ended, and best of all it could pick up radio signals.

With a sigh, Courier Six realised that soon he'd leave the Mojave, and with it he'd lose the signal of Radio New Vegas, home to Mr. New Vegas, one smooth talker if ever there was one.

"The maps on that thing will help us out if we ever need a little extra help navigating, or if the New Canaanites can't provide us with a safe road back to the Mojave once we're done in Zion," the dark-skinned man explained. Jed Masterson was, of course, the leader of this expedition.

In addition to that, he brought a small crew of caravan guards, most of them dressed in the sort of tanned leather body armour that was available nearly everywhere.

Chief amongst them was Stella, a stern-faced woman with her brown hair in a tight bun and hawkish eyes. The only thing Six had heard her do since he'd arrived earlier in the day was criticise the other guards.

Aside from that there was one idiot who was clearly talking bigger than he was capable of walking. He'd gotten a hold of a Vault jumpsuit, the blue and yellow full-body suits that had been manufactured deep within the hearts of the great underground Vaults themselves, the hidden safe houses of the Old World built so that when it came time for the Great War the people had a place to cower while the surface of the earth was cleansed in radiation and flames.

He probably just bought it from the Vault themed hotel on the Strip of New Vegas, who sold Vault jumpsuits as part of their tourist-catching merchandise – see human history! The iron boxes beneath the ground that saved mankind from self-manufactured doom! Wear a little piece of that history today, fresh off the corpse of some poor Vault Dweller!

The lack of reverence for something so important had disgusted Courier Six for the whole forty-two seconds he spent inside the hotel, though it hadn't really been on his mind at the time.

Beyond those two Jed was the only one who made himself known, the only official member of the Happy Trails Caravan Company among them all.

"Alright, so when do we leave?" the courier asked.

Jed smiled and chuckled at the enthusiasm of his new recruit. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought he was running from something. "Well, if you're here then we've got a full roster. Ready to move any time," he replied.

"Great."

"Now just to clarify, Zion is a long way away, even taking a direct route. We're talking two weeks without any detours. If we end up getting cut off by raiders and having to go the long way around this could turn into a long trip. We've got the supplies, but I don't want you chickening out halfway because you don't like having to invest too much time," he warned. "You'll get paid half now, and half on arrival at Zion. There's a bonus for the return trip."

Two weeks without detours. About a month there and back. The Mojave had a lot to worry about right now. One little courier would stop seeming so important when the Legion took another town out from right under the NCR's nose. Maybe it would be Novac this time, whether the town snipers were worth their rifles or not.

Courier Six would fade from the memories of the people who hunted him and the people who told his story whether they intended it or not, and the courier would return as just one of many couriers who walked the roads, blood vessels travelling up and down the arteries of the wasteland.

As Benny has said in a different context; 'what is one in a thousand?'

"Then let's go," Courier Six said.

"Well, all right then. Let's get moving. We've got a long road ahead of us…"

_14th November, 2281_

_The paths we're following are slow going, so you might as well keep your ears open and listen to what old Jed has to say._

_A few decades back, folks in the NCR started to hear about a community in northern Utah called New Canaan._

_Didn't know much about them, except that they were religious folks. Sent out missionaries to talk to the tribes._

_We've seen our share of cults, but the New Canaanites were honest traders. Good fighters, too. Raiders wouldn't tangle with 'em._

_But then the Legion appeared in Arizona. I reckon you know all about them._

_Turns out Caesar's first war chief, the Malpais Legate, was a New Canaanite._

_Joshua Graham._

_Legend goes that Graham was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole damned Legion._

_The New Canaanites wouldn't talk about him. They were ashamed. Guess I can't blame 'em._

_Well at Hoover Dam, the Malpais Legate finally met his match. Hanlon and Oliver kicked his New Canaanite butt right back over the river._

_Caesar had to make an example for the others, to show that even at the highest level, failure wouldn't be tolerated._

_He had Graham covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. People say he didn't even scream on the way down._

_Not long after, some of the slaves and tribals started to talk. Said Graham wasn't dead. Shouldn't have been any surprise._

_All this talk bothered Caesar, so he forbade anyone from speaking his name. Wanted to erase Joshua Graham from history._

_He got his wish._

_Joshua Graham disappeared._

_And in his place came legends of the Burned Man walking the wastes._

_Probably just a tribal ghost story. But New Canaan's been silent for a long time. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe the Malpais Legate is dead._

_Or maybe Joshua Graham did crawl out of that canyon and finally found his way back home._

_17th June, 2297_

The small skirmish had lasted two days, and the tribe's elders had been displeased with the sudden violence.

What began as a simple example of protection of territory had suddenly split and become an argument over who rightfully protected the stretch of highway in question. One side had maintained it fell into their territory, while the other said the same. The lines blurred, and tensions had run hot.

The final push was unclear right now; a hot-headed young warrior too eager to claim the strength and glory of his mother tribe, a simple miscommunication, a taunt or brag taken too far, or any other possibility.

The resulting battle brought tensions to an all time high, and a meeting would be held within the next month to ensure that a solution could be reached. Hopefully, peace would prevail.

However, the younger members of the tribe were anxious. Some bloodthirsty, eager to try and take the lands of their neighbours.

As part of a plan to help quell the bloodlust and teach the younger members (perhaps even to remind some of the elder ones) of a time years ago when things were different, an old friend to the people of this tribe had been asked to return, and tell a story.

He'd arrived early in the morning, wrapped in a modest cloak, hood drawn low to obscure his face until it was time to reveal his presence.

The people had gathered together at the well, scores of young members, the elders, the war chief, and many of the tribe's other members who could spare time enough to listen to the words of an old friend.

One of the elders, Keeper, had stepped up onto the sandstone block from which the addresses to the settlement were made and explained the reason they were gathered: the recent violence had put everyone on edge, and the elders felt that in these times, before they met with their neighbours, an old story from their own history could help add perspective, and soothe the stormy seas of the people's minds.

He stepped down from the block and took his place, and the stranger who had arrived earlier that morning stepped up in his place, before the tribe, and pulled back his hood.

Murmurs and gasps flowed through the gathered people, and after waiting for them to settle down sufficiently, the storyteller began.

"I have been asked to come here once more to tell you all a story born many years ago. A story about men and the demons within them, about the price of a people's innocence, about a person's actions and their passing into legend, and finally, about a place and what it means to call it home," he said, the people gathered about him listening to every word.

"Listen well, as I tell you the story of Zion…"

**~Nameless Grave~**

"_All roads wind down to the same spot. The Grave."_

**Two**

**The Road of Faith**

**Honest Hearts**


	18. By The Rivers Of Babylon

_**By the Rivers of Babylon**_

As we know, Zion Valley was once far removed from the vision we have come to know.

In times long past now, it was as the stories say: unspoiled. Lush and green with vegetation the likes of which much of our world has not seen.

Rivers ran clean, fresh, the water home to creatures extinct everywhere else in the world. Creatures that swim naturally amongst the currents beneath the water's surface stopped only by the creatures of the land as they waded in to feed.

It was a haven, a paradise. The canyons and formation of the land kept it safe from the bands of raiders that might have made their way in.

The 80s – yes, you're all well and truly familiar with them, or at least what remains of them – spent years making raids on what they believed were ways into Zion, seeking to pillage the treasures and natural resources within.

Not once in twenty years did they actually breach the valley. Scouts who came close were picked off before they could discover one of the few avenues of entrance, and as time went on what few had survived the collapse of the Time Before gradually closed, leaving Zion pure.

In time, new ways have emerged to enter. The Southern Passage, well guarded, is but one of the several ways that exist today. But their use and the knowledge of them is not for me to divulge, nor do I believe you need to know of them.

Our story is not for the time of ways into Zion, however. Our story concerns a time when the roads that led to paradise had indeed been walked, and not all the feet that treaded them were pure.

The first, the earliest to reach paradise and remain there when our story was told, we know as the Sorrows. Of course, everyone here knows the Sorrows. A different people, descended from origins that they no longer remember.

Yet the Courier, the way he looked at them sometimes as he walked among them… he learned. He understood. He carried their history, but left their future up to them.

In time, we shall reach their part in this tale.

After the Sorrows came another tribe. In these days only splinters of them walked Zion, watching and guiding the other tribes as they believed necessary. These splinters were of the New Canaanites.

Following the New Canaanites came another tribe, benevolent but hardened through battle. Skilled warriors, but not cruel. The Dead Horses, walking Zion and drinking of its rivers for a time as they acted as guardians of the great stone canyons.

But the reasons for the Dead Horses coming to act as warriors and hunters within Zion's great walls were a third people. A brutal people, suited only to burning the land, salting the earth, and consuming that which others produce. They could not, or perhaps would not sow, only reap, and through years of this evil practice they came to be feared. They were twisted, evolved, taught by hands skilled at killing in how to continue their gruesome ways to an effect beyond the scope of their greedy eyes.

They were shown the road into Zion, and they swarmed through like locusts, a plague upon the green earth of paradise, ravaging the land, contaminating the air with their evil, poisoning the rivers with blood.

Zion, a beautiful place, defiled by war.

The final tribe to step into Zion would have considered itself less a tribe, and more a symptom of civilisation. An 'organisation'. Regardless of what they believed themselves beyond a tribe of traders, Happy Trails arrived in Zion one day deep within winter, looking over the haven they had arrived in with stunned eyes and eager visions.

More importantly, though, this was when the Courier came to us. Yes, one of the two.

His footsteps will never leave Zion, no matter what happens to it.

Close your eyes now, and imagine the world as I paint it in your mind. Imagine the people, the events, the places… and let us look upon where our story begins.

The southern reach of Zion, a canyon breaking away from the valley's heart, stretching down along one of the many veins of water that came from the pure water lakes.

Stone walls rose high in all directions, golden barriers around the tribe of Happy Trails as they stepped across the soft dirt.

Courier Six as he called himself stared in wonder at the landscape, taking it all in. He breathed a sigh of awe, unable to remember a time he had ever seen something so beautiful.

He was a weathered man, tall. His hair was black as night, shaggy and unkempt, and in his time on the road he'd found himself growing a beard that his razor blade had slowly been losing its ability to cull. He wore a duster, like the other, but this one was grey, and it had yet to tell his history but for a dark stain on the neck that spoke of the night he died.

Held on his back was a rifle, a gift from a recent friend he'd fought alongside, and who was waiting for him back somewhere he might have thought of as home.

At his waist, on an old leather belt he wore a gun holster for a weapon inherited from his father. On the other side was a blade with a past he did not quite understand. Carved into the hilt was a cipher: the number six. A link the Courier hadn't considered.

Hidden within his duster, unseen by the others he travelled with, was a silver pistol, or perhaps platinum was a better term. Nestled beside it was a disc, a small circle that means nothing to you or me, but to the Courier it was an item that symbolised his entire journey.

He surveyed the land around him as his companions did, waiting for their leader, a man called Jed Masterson, to speak.

"All right, people!" he said enthusiastically, turning away from the sights to look at his successful crew. "Been a long couple weeks, but here we are: Zion!"

"This is, without a doubt, the most drop-dead gorgeous thing I have seen since I died," Courier Six said aloud. Everyone around him chuckled; his story had become a subject of much discussion among his travelling companions.

Something within his mind stopped him from saying it was _the _most beautiful thing he'd ever seen though. Buried within his memories, the Courier knew a place even more wonderful. Once.

Ricky, a poor fool who thought to play as a competent hunter, wearing clothing salvaged from one of the forgotten Vaults of Humanity, promptly dropped from his legs and sighed with relief.

"I know your feet hurt," the man, Jed Masterson said. "I know you're tired. But I need everyone's mind on the trail ahead."

Stella, bless her, poor woman, was the first to speak up. "Ain't the trail ahead worries me, Jed. Those descents we made, through that slot canyon back up there? Ain't no way we're getting back out the way we come. And then what?" she wondered, gesturing back to the way they'd entered Zion.

Indeed, it was a one-way road, a narrow slot in the rocks that with careful navigation could be slipped through, but the slope and narrow nature of the area made it difficult at best to return the way one came.

Even the Courier, skilled as he was in many things, could not have climbed back up that way.

"Goddammit Stella, heard you the first time. And the fifteenth too," Jed swore exasperatedly.

The Courier's eyes were not as good as they were in the days before his death, but his mind was no less impaired for the test he had been given.

He sensed something was amiss around them. A pebble slipped from a cliff face nearby, tapping against the stones before it finally landed with a thud on the dirt.

His eyes began to search, narrowing in suspicion.

"The New Canaanites will know a way," the leader of the Happy Trails tribe said truthfully. "And if they don't, we got the maps on our friend's Pip-Boy over there."

The metal device upon Six's arm, home to a treasure trove of information courtesy of the Old World, contained maps of most locations in America, as well as keeping track of his pulse and other vitals as long as he wore it.

The Courier, still cautious, kept his eyes on a ridge on the other side of the river, beyond a gap spanned by a single rickety bridge.

"Enough lollygagging! Get moving and keep an eye out for tribals!" their leader said loudly, calling the guards and traders of the caravan to fall in and get moving.

'Tribals' is a term those who believe themselves civilised use to refer to people like yourselves; those who live off the land, those uneducated in technology or lacking in knowledge of the Time Before.

The New California Republic – heh – once defined tribals as everything beyond its borders. A testament to their arrogance. But their people and their ways are not for us to judge, and the story of how they become what we see now is a story for another day. A story that like so very many others that speak of the rise and fall of nations, involves the Courier.

The caravan began to move, Brahmin plodding forward at the urging of the nearest guards. The Courier moved too, slowly stepping forward to join the small contingent of about ten people and two double-headed bovine carrying the bulk of the trading gear.

"Sorry to bother you with reality, ol' Jed. Who cares if we can't get back out the way we come? That's not a problem!" Stella muttered quietly, so that her boss would not hear.

"Hey, what was that!" Ricky yelped.

"I could have sworn…" one of the guards began, agreeing with the sorry excuse for a wastelander, but the sentence became one of many that lay unfinished upon the earth.

Everyone in the caravan heard the explosion that sent the enormous bullet straight through the caravan guard's head, disintegrating it entirely.

Chaos erupted amongst Happy Trails.

Standing high on a cliff face, reloading an enormous and brutal weapon made to pierce through the metal of the Old World, a weapon that during the Time Before was forbidden from use against a man, was the leader of the tribe that had come to turn Zion's rivers red.

They dressed simply. Cloth, rags, the skins of both slain animals and slain foes turned into patches of clothing against what little elements nature still had to use against mankind that they hadn't twisted into something else.

They painted their bodies white, and then splashed them red, a concoction of dye that had to be mixed with the blood of a fallen foe unique to each who was earning another bloody mark upon their skin.

A recent custom learned a member of a tribe outside their own had added a tradition of braiding their hair, adding a braid for each achievement, or at least what they considered such.

While the Twisted Hairs earned braids for both achievements in growing up to achievements in hunting meals for the tribe and defending others to victories in battle and symbolic removing and adding braids for the losers and winners of personal challenges respectively, these were a people who would braid their hair for rape, murder, pillage, slaughter. Their hair would speak of achievements in destruction, successes in tearing down what was left of the world and feasting upon it wherever it lay.

Their chief wore the hides of Yao Guai upon his shoulders and the skull of something now extinct as a mask, a strip of cloth over his face to obscure it and red dyed into it to create a human skull staring from the open mouth of something that might have been the ancestor of the Brahmin.

His tribe attacked the caravan, appearing from the cliffs holding weapons that neither the NCR nor Caesar's Legion would have believed possible for tribals. Weapons stolen from the New Canaanites and from former places of military upon the Great Salt Lake. We knew them as 'forty-five machine guns'. The Courier, having read books of the Old World on the road to Zion and in the time before his demise, knew them for the nickname their creator had evoked: 'Tommy Guns'.

"Goddammit, ambush! Cover, people! Watch yourselves!" Jed roared, selecting the nearest rock and diving behind it.

The guards were firing up into the cliffs, but most had come bearing shotguns, ill-suited to this kind of situation.

The Courier was quick to act, following Jed's lead and fleeing to cover, pulling the rifle from his back from its resting place and calling it to action once more.

"You want some, assholes! You just pissed off the wrong guy! And that means Ricky!" the jumpsuit wearing burden roared, drawing his pistol and aiming straight up at the tribe's leader.

Stella proved far more effective, appearing from behind cover with a grenade launcher, taking aim briefly and firing one up into the crags near them, where two of the tribals stood, firing down upon them.

The explosion blasted them from the cliff, and they came to fall broken on the earth, dashed against the rocks.

Ricky proved his abilities once and for all when the clip slipped out the bottom of his pistol to clatter uselessly to the ground. He barely had a moment for his own narcissism to clear and reveal that he was standing in the open amidst and ambush, and the war chief of his attackers had a weapon traditionally suited to opening power armour or tank plating aimed at his head. Then he pulled the trigger.

The bullet slammed through him, disintegrating his head and cleaving his torso open. Ricky fell uselessly to the ground, half his heart and an entire lung redistributed onto the earth around him.

"Holy hell," Jed breathed. "Stay low, people! Stay low!"

With his weapon fired, the warlord on the rocks above was forced to reload once more. Courier Six, keen on the use of firearms moreso than any other form of weapon, had picked up that fact already, and made use of it immediately.

Slipping from behind the rock, the dead man aimed down the sights at the warlord above and fired.

The bullet whizzed by his foe without striking, but its appearance startled the leader, who seldom came so close to danger.

He looked down into the eyes of the Courier. This man did not have as much knowledge of guns, however. Courier Six fired again, his weapon capable of expelling five rounds before it needed to reload.

The warlord had not predicted his aim. The bullet caught his arm, knocking him backwards along the cliff. Unfortunately, he did not die that day. The blow enraged him, reminded him of a simple truth that no matter what, he was mortal.

The warriors around the cliffs roared, snarled and screamed, firing blindly down into them, forcing them to hide behind cover for fear of being caught by a stray bullet.

A guard who slipped out of cover in an attempt to fire upon those above him promptly caught a bullet straight into his collar, knocking him to the ground where he would die if gone untreated.

"Enough of this, we're sitting ducks here," Stella growled, moving to fire another grenade to blast the enemies from the cliff tops. She emerged from cover and fired.

A piece of stone was torn from the wall of Zion, another wound on the valley slowly destroying it as war preyed upon its purity.

Thankfully, the falling stone dragged one of the numerous cliffs down with it, and another tribal was plunged to their doom, this one into the river below.

Stella, however, didn't manage to fire another shot. A spray of bullets elicited a scream, sending her collapsing to the ground to be pulled back into cover by Jed as more bullets sprayed around the two of them, some catching the woman in the legs.

"Stella! Oh no… don't you die on me, woman, you hear!" the man demanded, the previously cold back and forth completely forgotten in the panic.

The Courier glanced over his stone cover for just a moment, counting the white figures against the red stone. There were still five of them. From their vantage points the amount they'd managed to kill was already a feat against the odds, and while the Courier knew just how well odds could turn, he knew he couldn't count on things to just keep rolling that way.

Sighing, he looked over at another guard as he crouched low behind a small boulder, terrified of what would happen when he eventually looked up.

The Courier listened. The hail of gunfire wasn't consistent. It paused, but rarely because the gunners were reloading. He had to pick the moment well.

When it came, he was fortunate, as morbid as it is to call it that – one of his few remaining allies raced from under cover for the narrow slope they'd slipped into the valley through.

Courier Six was racing in the opposite direction just a moment later, and the result kept both men alive longer; the attackers thought that what remained of the Happy Trails tribe were acting in unison, and were confused for a moment, firing first towards the bolting guard, and then towards the Courier.

Jed Masterson, enraged by the loss of Stella, another wanderer like the Courier who had merely picked the wrong moment to jump from cover and been killed for it, appeared over the boulder he sat atop and fired his revolver, empting each round in a sequence of six.

The number six is a curious thing, isn't it? No more so than any other number, you say? Perhaps, but to the Courier it was a cipher, a code that held his entire existence. The simple number six and it encompassed his entire self, while stretching back into times and places he could not yet understand.

Maybe you're right; 'six' alone is little. But it is given meaning by the marks blazed into America, marks to guide a lonely wanderer into yesterday.

It is a number famously carved into the hilt of the Blade of the Mojave, chiselled onto an otherwise blank headstone at the foot of an empty grave, scratched onto the front of an abandoned Brotherhood bunker, spray-painted enormous and thick upon an Old-World screen, and thousands mark the entire length of Hoover Dam.

It marks more places besides, always different, whether in how it marks the land, or arrangement of the numeral; it has been seen to face backwards, tilt on angles… and like the flags, only Couriers truly know their meaning.

But I digress, our story has slipped back to the present, and that is not the story we wish to tell yet, for it is still being written.

Jed Masterson was no novice in battle, and his bullets struck their mark true: two more tribals fell dead, but not without cost: the guard who ran first was gunned down as he fled.

Dashing along the path before him, Courier Six was joined by Jed as they bolted for the bridge. The remaining tribals took cover briefly as Six fired back at them, but as they clattered across the rickety bridge the assault ended, the tribals preferring instead to loot the numerous corpses they had already made.

"Oh god… oh no…" Jed wheezed when they reached the other side, apparently safe for the moment.

The reason the tribals had let them escape became painfully clear as they paused. The false sense of security was the death of Jed Masterson.

Sitting atop a ridge, rifle aimed, was one more tribal, preparing for his second shot.

The Courier, mind barely processing what happened, simply charged blindly towards the tribal. He took aim, and his eyes, far from perfect after his re-emergence into the realm of the living, noticed another shape appear behind the first.

This tribal was not chalky white and painted with red like the others, and his next action further differentiated him from their ranks: he raised some kind of club and struck the tribal in the back of his head, sending him tumbling towards off the ridge, either unconscious or dead.

Six didn't stop to check which, he simply drew his gun and pulled the trigger to make sure, blowing a piece of the despicable person's head clean off with his weapon of choice; his five-shot revolver unique in that rather than simple bullets it was capable of firing shells normally dispelled via rifle.

This young man, however, was not aiming to attack him, and dropped his weapon to his side as the Courier, adrenaline coursing through him and panic still thick in his mind, aimed at him.

They both stared at each other for a few moments as finally the gun was lowered. Courier Six, already the sole survivor of the Happy Trails expedition, looked back down the road where already a horde of the chalky tribals had appeared from nooks in the cliff face and started swarming over the bodies, vultures feeding on corpses.

"Hoi. White Legs don't leave survivors often. You're some kind of lucky, let me tell you," the young man sighed in a strange accent.

Yes, this tribe was indeed the feared and hated White Legs, hairs braided in a stolen tradition, skin paled by chalk and then splashed with blood, murder etched into every piece of their beings.

"You came from outside, didn't you? From the civilised lands?" the young tribal enquired.

Courier Six looked him over. His skin was well tanned, golden brown, his garb giving him plenty of exposure to the sun. On his head he wore an Old World cap adorned with feathers, a scrap of cloth sewn into the back to protect his neck from the sun. He wore a necklace of carved beads, and slung over one shoulder was a pack in which a small variety of tribal remedies and other items were stored. Crossing the strap from the other shoulder was a band of sewn animal skin and fur, a small loop at his side for the war club he now held in his hand to hang. At the other end of the sash, on his shoulder, was a piece of metal on which a spiral was engraved, first matching the uneven edges of the small plate and then becoming more organic into the centre.

His entire body was covered with tattoos, most prominent the curving ones around his eyes and those curving from his jaw up his cheek.

"I wouldn't exactly call them 'civilised', but essentially yes," the Courier responded with a grimace, thinking back to the Mojave and Vegas.

The tribal inhaled. "Wow… Joshua will want to hear about this."

The Courier was both suspicious and surprised by the name. It seemed too obvious. "Joshua?" he asked.

"Joshua Graham," the young man stated. The 'Burned Man' of Caesar's Legion, the 'vengeful spirit' slaves were said to whisper about. "He leads our tribe. Thanks to him the Dead Horses are strong, and safe from our enemies."

Now the Courier knew two tribes in Zion: the White Legs, who had tried to kill him, and the Dead Horses, one of whom had saved him.

"He'll want to talk to anyone coming up from south-ways," the tribal continued. "Guess that means just you, now. Come, I can take you to him."

Sighing with a mix of frustration, despair for his lost comrades and a cold sense of paving over a horrific event as best as possible, the Courier's reply was unenthusiastic. "I guess the rest of my afternoon's cleared up now, so why not?"

The tribal seemed a little taken aback by the man's reply, and unsure how to respond. Sparing a glance down the ridge and across the bridge to where the White Leg ambush had taken place, he decided that moving quickly was more important than considering whether such dismissal over a slaughter was the way a person should react over such a situation.

Perhaps the Courier had merely accepted that to mourn them then would have only given the attackers time to finish the job, or perhaps he just wanted to move on and be done with it.

Either way, young Follows-Chalk, scout in training for the Dead Horses, turned and began moving, motioning his arm to tell the Courier to follow.

"We head east, then. Joshua is at our tribe's camp on the Eastern Virgin," he explained.

"I take it that's nowhere near as orgiastic as it sounds?" Courier Six asked deadpan, falling into step behind the young man.

"I'm sorry?" Follows-Chalk wondered, not understanding the Courier's inappropriate joke to himself.

"Never mind. East then?" he replied.

"We follow this path for a while," the young man said, following the path as it ran upwards, peaking at a small overlook. "Nice view of the river, neh?"

The Courier stepped forward, noting chalk depictions of men upon the red stones walling one side of the road they walked up.

He reached the crest and looked over Zion's breadth. Previously his view had been obstructed by the walls of stone, giving him only shreds of the beautiful place. Now he saw it in full.

"Ho…ly… shit…" was all he could manage.

The valley was spread out before him, rising paths winding up rock formations to incredible vistas, the remains of an old road snaking along the dirt at ground level past an ancient camping ground. The river they'd followed to reach the vista joined two more, the first northwest and the second east, running along the base of their overlook as it ran along further into the canyon.

Plants were everywhere. Not just the dry shrubs of the Mojave, or brittle stalks of grass clawing at the sun for every breath of life it could give them. Actual plants. Trees, bushes, leaves that fell to the ground in autumn and grew back in the spring. Even here, as winter closed in, some ignored the season and continued to be lush all year round.

The Courier looked upon paradise in wonder and awe, unable to believe that his mind claimed to have seen something more beautiful in his time.

The young scout with him paused and watched as the newcomer was stunned by the view, silently observing the outsider and trying to gauge him.

When the Courier turned back and followed the path, Follows-Chalk fell into step beside him, still quietly weighing him mentally.

As they walked the road, a sound other than the wind and water rose up. A deep, threatening growl.

Another ridge further up was home to an enormous green gecko, but it was clear by the way it was backing towards the drop that it wasn't the threatening creature responsible for the growl, even if it was a dangerous beast in its own right.

Courier Six brought his gun up, but the tribal travelling with him brought a hand up to stop him, shaking his head.

"Freeze! Don't move a muscle. Yao Guai," Follows-Chalk breathed.

The gecko, backed into a corner, let out a shrill cry and charged. There was a thick, vicious roar and then a screech cut short by the following sound of something organic being ripped open.

The headless body of the gecko tumbled over the ridge and landed on the path before the two.

Then the Yao Guai appeared. A four-legged demon covered in wiry black fur. It stepped up onto the ridge and then leaned back, sitting on its hind legs and sniffing the air. Its eyes were bright and colourless, its teeth enormous and sharp as the most dangerous of blades.

I'm sure I have no need to tell some of the elder members of my audience, but for the benefit of the young ones among you, shall I explain to you what a Yao Guai is in full?

Hmhm, of course, those of you who possess the knowledge already may feel free to take a breather here. I suggest a drink, it is important to stay ahead of thirst at all times, especially when the sun beats down upon us all like it has recently.

Now, those still here and listening, I'm sure you've seen dogs before. Four-legged creatures that are often tamed and trained as companions? The Courier himself was known to travel with a curious dog himself, but the creature was not with him when he went to Zion.

A Yao Guai is like a dog in some ways. They have four legs and a fur-covered hide, but rather than the somewhat equal distribution of a dog's legs, Yao Guai are somewhat more like humans.

Their hind legs, which would be our legs, were used for pushing them forward as they moved. Their front legs, our arms, were used for a variety of things, much like ourselves. They played the role of a second pair of legs, as well as being used for simple things like bracing themselves against objects or striking out at other hostile creatures.

They're certainly not as dextrous with their hands as we are, and it's a good thing too, because in many other ways they easily overcome us, but chief of all those ways is in how they eat. A simple dog is more effective at ripping into food than a human, as we all know. Their teeth are sharper, and with the exception of some of the more animalistic tribes, they are much more vicious about how they tear through their food.

Yao Guai are far, far worse. Descendants of creatures from the Time Before that were similarly threatening, though nowhere near as vicious, the creatures are hulking and aggressive beasts that will fight tooth and claw to bring down the object of their hostility, and very rarely fail to succeed.

I have seen a Bighorner charge a Yao Guai in the hopes of killing it, only to instead enrage it. Oh, the Bighorner succeeds in hurting or even wounding the beast, but far from enough to truly debilitate it. Instead, the roaring monster will react with aggression, and the Bighorner will be torn apart by the claws and teeth or something far, far more dangerous than the normally docile Bighorner could ever hope to bring down.

Books from the Old World call them 'bears', and some of you may remember the flag of the New California Republic bearing such a creature. Yao Guai are a refinement of their more destructive traits perfected through the new elements added to the world after the Forgotten Moment occurred.

Dangerous, monstrous creatures, territorial and vicious. It is not often that they leave survivors of an attack, much like the White Legs. A Yao Guai kills for food or to protect its home, though; actions essential to its survival. The White Legs killed for personal gain at best. For sport, for joy, and for the simple sake of ending another life at their worst.

Ah, you're returning. Good, I believe I have adequately introduced Yao Guai to our younger audience, so let us resume our story, shall we?

The Courier stared hard up at the Yao Guai which had just ripped the head clean off a gecko. It stared back, sniffing the air and baring its teeth, before it dropped back down onto all four of its thick legs and disappeared behind the ridge, leaving the two young men to continue in peace, if not of the mind then at least physically.

"Hoo! That was some kind of lucky!" the tribal with the Courier said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"It looked right at me. I swear we were both expecting to try and kill each other for a minute there. I certainly wouldn't have taken any chances if that thing started coming for me," Courier Six said, surprised he hadn't taken part in yet another battle.

Follows-Chalk seemed to take it in stride. "Guess that one was all full of gecko, neh? Don't get used to it though, Yao Guai are plenty mean as a rule," he explained, resuming the walk.

"You wouldn't know by looking at them," the Courier said sarcastically.

They passed over a hill and down a steep slope to reach an old road from the Time Before, used by the transports the people from those times used. Some of them still littered Zion, metal constructs who had been warped and rusted by the years until very little of what they once were remained.  
>People have tried to salvage the machines into usable form over the years, but always the same problem is met – whatever powered the machines no longer exists in most cases, leaving them without a source to draw strength from. To you, it would be like trying to carry someone while you are dying of hunger. Without food to give you strength, the task is impossible.<p>

Along the side of this road were warnings to those who sought to war upon Zion's ground: the heads of fallen foes impaled upon spears.

The Courier was reminded of a recent event, one from his life after his death. A similarly grisly fate for a less warlike people, brought down upon them by a force far, far larger than the White Legs. A Legion. _The _Legion.

Noticing his new friend's unease, Follows-Chalk explained.

"The dead sentries. Shamans say our enemies' souls are trapped in them, but Joshua says it show's we're serious about fighting White Legs," he summarised.

"There's serious and then there's decapitating people and putting their heads on spikes," the Courier said, rather uneasily.

Follows-Chalk was confused for a moment, unsure why the Courier disagreed, but the young man was no fool. He was capable of looking at things from different angles. "It is nasty, no matter who is right about their purpose. But the White Legs, you saw them. They are way nastier! It is hard to fight against them without needing to try these ways, otherwise they find a weakness and try to exploit it," he justified, gesturing with an open palm to the 'sentries'.

"Doesn't mean anybody has to like it," the outsider stated flatly, looking a dead man right in the only eye he had left and shuddering. He was used to killing in the heat of battle and finding himself in gory situations, but decapitating a corpse after they were already slain and then mounting them on a stick as a warning to others was something he did not think he could ever bring himself to do.

Understanding the Courier's distaste for the whole idea, Follows-Chalk decided to change the subject, pointing down the road to a small shack built in the Time Before. It was covered in white handprints.

"See those handprints? Dead Horses and Sorrows mark them on taboo places, places from Back When. Good thing for you I don't buy into that stuff," he explained with a mischievous grin.

Forgive me for going off topic yet again, but I feel it worth mentioning the reverence we hold for this time before the world was said to burn in manmade fire. The 'Old World' it is commonly known as, though so many names exist for that great shadow looming in the past. My kin and I have known it as the Time Before, the Dead Horses referred to it as Back When. Some who claimed to deal more exclusively in real facts called it the Pre-War. Others referred to it as the name this entire land goes by, as if the new wilderness that has struggled so hard to survive no longer carries the name it used to: America. The Time of Transgressions, the Lost Paradise, the World of the Living, the Forgotten.

A Courier once came to name it simply 'History'.

The tribesman and the Courier walked further along the road, eventually leaving its cracked grey surface and stepping down to the river itself. The Courier had followed it ever since he had entered Zion, and now, where it was shallow, he was led through the narrow road hidden underneath the running water.

He travelled along the Eastern Virgin River, taking care at Follows-Chalk's instruction to watch for the bear traps his tribe had laid beneath the water's surface to catch unwanted guests.

The walls were adorned with chalk drawings, explained as depicting victories of the Dead Horses over other tribes. Prominent among them was a face covered in white lines, unlike the faces of the pictured White Legs, completely white with red strips over their eyes. This one was amongst the victorious Dead Horses, and was the largest depiction amongst them all.

The Courier wasn't going to assume anything but the truth. The Burned Man.

They kept moving, and eventually emerged from the narrow river into a secluded canyon. An island in the centre was home to a small campfire and a collection of men and women dressed like Follows-Chalk, and the far beach was home to even more, sparring, sitting and talking, and going about their business. Tents and bed rolls had been set up all over the beach for the Dead Horses to sleep come the evenings.

High above them, standing on the high rocks – the Courier realised that they had even watched he and Follows-Chalk enter the camp – were the lookouts for the tribe, keeping an eye out for White Leg scouts or warriors.

"Here we are," the young man said, pointing to a cave at the back of the camp. "Joshua's just ahead there, in Angel Cave."

The Courier stepped forward. It seemed that once again he carried a message that had nearly killed him to deliver. That it had nearly killed him was part of that very message, even.

Follows-Chalk watched as Courier Six entered the dim light of Angel Cave. An outsider within Zion.

Perhaps this was his chance.


	19. Carrying Seed to Sow

__Now this chapter will branch a bit from the original Honest Hearts, beginning something of a divergence in how my story will flow versus how the original Honest Hearts ran. Why did I do this? Because honestly, the original storyline for Honest Hearts was crap. You meet Joshua Graham, and then you take part in minor fetch quests for about an hour before meeting Daniel, briefly being interested, and then doing fetch quests for another hour. Then you get a pretty cool final mission and depending on your choices Zion either becomes an empty and almost completely pointless location, or it becomes a mostly empty and almost completely pointless location.

I didn't like that. It was short, it was pretty uninspired, and they didn't use near enough of the mythological resources alotted to them to genuinely build the Zion expedition into something truly awesome. It was cool, and the location was impressive, and Joshua Graham was an interesting character who didn't get a lot of exploration into his depth. Everyone else was chaff though, and the quests sucked. I'm not saying the direction I take will be better, and it'll still keep some consistency, but hopefully everyone will decide it's at least more exciting in the end.

Here's the next chapter!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Carrying Seed to Sow<strong>_

_Date of Log: 17th November, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: 08-21-74_

A courier walks harsh roads to reach his destination. He runs through danger to ensure his delivery arrives. A courier faces the odds of distance, time, and any obstacles that may lie between them and the finish line.

I never backed down from the challenge, though.

Last month I was walking through storms to see a settlement of strong-willed men and women intent on building a life on their terms.

A year ago I strode the Long 15 on my way north to who knew where.

Forever ago I strode lands far away, a black hound by my side.

Today was a day where my willingness to walk through danger with anything under my arm had come into play. This time it was a job for the Khans, and not quite a courier assignment per se.

Chance roared and unloaded the machinegun, blasting indiscriminately down upon the NCR troops behind their sandbags.

The occupation of Nelson was still in its early stages. Few troops had actually come in to hold the place, and among them few were truly experienced. Then again, the Khans had little experience on their side too.

Another of my fellows threw a grenade down. His throwing arm was less than impressive; the explosion kicked up dust and dirt, but was nowhere near the small collection of troopers taking cover.

"Go!" Alyssa pushed, but I was already running, taking the cloud of dust as cover to eliminate the line of sight between myself and the troopers and bolting from the ridge down the road, throwing myself behind another boulder.

If I'd been noticed priority hadn't been assigned to me. Chance and the rest of my brothers and sisters were keeping their attention well occupied from the ridge.

Rising around the entire town was a tall chain link fence. Easy enough to scale in most situations, but the noise it would make would be too conspicuous to sneak in, and I couldn't afford to be spotted until the package I carried was safely delivered.

Instead I moved along the fence line, darting from cover to cover, whatever it happened to be. First another boulder, then a shrub, then the side of a crumbled building sitting just outside the town limits.

A watchtower gave me pause as I moved, a man who couldn't have been much older than me keeping watch on the battle with binoculars. He didn't even notice as I moved, so severe was his tunnel vision.

I slipped around the corner as I reached it and continued down to the other gate, hoping that they might have been foolish enough to leave it unguarded.

No luck, but an alternative appeared in the form of a risk I was willing to take: a boulder near the fence high enough to clamber up and use as a platform to jump the fence from.

I looked around the rock in time to see another squad of troops dash down towards the ridge defence to help their comrades. Not long to pull it off.

A moment of calm descended as I climbed the stone. The thing seemed to be formed just right, so that climbing it was no great challenge. At the top however things looked slightly less appetising than they had before. It was a fall I could recover from if I were just jumping, but if I missed the fence I was likely to either end up making enough noise to be discovered or injuring myself by falling at a bad angle.

I looked out over the rooftops of the small town towards the firefight the Khans had instigated as a distraction. Neither side seemed to have taken casualties; it was just an exchange of bullets between two squads of green members at this point.

Taking a deep breath I leaped, planting one foot on the top of the fence for a brief moment to push myself forwards in an impulse decision that could have broken my neck or saved my life.

For a moment I felt my foot begin to slip forwards, beginning the moment of panic when a jump becomes a fall, but I pushed off in time to throw myself forwards, soaring through the air and landing on the roof of the building opposite the stone.

Stunned and extremely pleased with myself, I clambered to my feet and looked towards my destination once again; a house down the street from the skirmish. The soldier's eyes were all looking outwards now, meaning that if someone slipped inside the fence they had ten minutes in which the NCR would notice nothing.

Perfect for me.

I dropped down into the street with a grunt, pausing a moment to catch my breath, and then I ran, ignoring the possibility of patrols on the streets.

A bad move, but I was lucky; none saw me as I dashed straight for my target without hesitation.

I peered through an empty space where a window used to be and saw two soldiers inside. One was drinking, pacing back and forth. A young man sweating profusely, terrified of the conflict outside and hiding with the communications officer to try and avoid the remote possibility of being shot.

The comms officer himself was relaying the details of the battle back to whoever was listening at the other end, embellishing the numbers and claiming that the Khans had sent an entire thirty men to attack Nelson and take it, and that one Corporal Jeremy Irvine had already slain five of them singlehandedly and was organising the effort to repel them with the few men on base.

Lies, of course. The Khans had about six – heh – men with them, only five of whom were currently attacking the gate in an uncoordinated effort that had no intention of taking Nelson or even breaching the gate. Corporal Jeremy Irvine was probably the man drinking heavily and sweating behind the officer.

Corporal Irvine might have been posthumously awarded a medal for all I know. The embellishments were the last thing the comms officer had a chance to relay before all the men or women listening to the broadcast heard was the sound of a door being kicked open, a bottle smashing, and one panicked, "Fuck!" from the officer moments after claiming the Khans were on the defensive.

The cowardly alcoholic died first, a bullet straight through the neck leaving him on the ground, wide-eyes clouding over in seconds.

The communications officer had time enough to reach for the gun on the table before I unloaded the rest of the pistol all over him and his equipment in equal measure. My aim wasn't perfect, and my hands were shaking, but when one bullet wasn't enough the solution was never 'two', it was 'all of them'.

Benny never learned that one.

"What's-_sshhhh_-going on!" the voice at the other end demanded, some uptight sounding soldier. "Of-_sssshhhhhh_-r!"

One of the rounds had torn apart the headset. It was struggling to function, but it did a far better job at staying alive than the two Californians in the room.

I stepped over the first corpse and set the package down on the table. In big red letters it read '_Happy birthday, Chance!_' complete with smiley face and a little birthday cake Alyssa had drawn on it.

I grabbed the dial, ready to twist.

"Goddammit, Har-_sssshhhhh_-en, don't you go dying!" the headset yelled, valiantly trying to get its entire message from one end of the line to the other. "Don't leave that son of yours-_sssshhhhhhh_- and scared in the world!"

Something in that grabbed at me. Part of me observed the man I had just mercilessly slaughtered and wanted to take it back. But that part was small, and in recent times I'd done my best to forget it and make it shrink down into my mind. I didn't want that voice in my head. Too much anger in me.

I picked up the headset. "What a shame you don't take that attitude to the people you point guns at," I snapped, twisting the timer for three minutes. Savagely kicking the dead father out of his chair I set the charge down on the seat and pushed it in, hiding it from view under the desk.

With my delivery made, it was time to get out, and I paused for a moment. I'm no master tactician, nor was I before I died. In my youth I was quick to act and slow to think about it, pack mentality and bloodlust making me an animal that attacked first, figured out the why of it afterwards.

Panic was the first thing, followed quickly by determination. My father didn't raise me to blow myself up behind enemy lines. If you're gonna die, at least do so at the hands of an enemy instead of your own poor planning. Considerably more dignified. If lying face down in the dirt as your stomach acid and blood swap places could be called dignified.

I moved into their line of sight, waving both my free arms to show I'd completed my delivery on schedule, and then raced for the water tower. Yes, I could climb partway up that and leap the fence.

It went better than planned, and with the minutes closing I ran as hard as I could along the hillside. Counting the seconds, I dashed up along the hillside and threw myself behind the rock, straight on top of Alyssa.

"Well hello," she said with a smirk. I said nothing, went red, and stayed longer than I needed to.

Crap, I'd lost track of the seconds.

"Welcome back," Chance laughed, ducking behind cover again.

"Ready?" the young girl I was lying on top of panting asked.

Screw it; right about now was close enough. I pulled myself off and began.

"Happy birthday to you," I began.

"Happy birthday to you!" Alyssa and another of my brothers joined in.

"Happy birthday to Chance!" we half-yelled, half-sang in unison, loud enough to confuse the hell out of the NCR soldiers fighting for their lives.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY T-"

_**BOOM!**_

_~ 2246 ~_

_Two Followers of the Apocalypse meet with Mormon Missionary Joshua Graham to study tribal dialect in the Arizona region_

The cave was naturally formed into a kind of antechamber; a dome shaped interior lit by what little light from Zion's sky that managed to slip in and the ring of torches set throughout the 'room'.

A small collection of items had been collected onto a handcrafted set of shelves; medicines the Dead Horses had learned to mix both from their own history and the lessons the New Canaanite had taught them.

Three Dead Horses stood around the cavern, the Disciples of New Canaan. Those who worked closest with Joshua Graham.

One of them, a woman kneeling and inspecting the medicines, stood and turned to look at the man in the grey coat. "Hoi," she began in something the Courier did not speak. "Owslandr zookuh Joshua Graham?"

He paused and went over the line in his mind. There were only a handful of things it could have meant. "Outlander… wants? Outlander knows? Wait, I think I get it. 'Outlander seeks Joshua Graham', right?"

"You know our tongue. Smart owslandr," she said with an impressed twist of her mouth. 'Owslandr.' Outlander. A corruption of an old language. Or better to say its synthesis with a forgotten one.

"Yeah. Can I talk to him?" the Courier pressed.

The woman smiled and shook her head. "No, utman. Joshua Graham is not here; he has taken Pale Omen with him to the Aerie."

Courier Six was an individual more intelligent than the average wanderer of the wastelands, but he had yet to know much about Zion or the conflict taking place there. The Disciple's explanations served to aid him very little.

"I can pick up some of what you say, but I'm by no means a translator," he warned, furrowing his brow and trying to make sense of things. "This 'Aerie', what is it?"

"Outsider," Follows-Chalk called, stepping into the Angel Cave behind the Courier. "Joshua Graham is not here, Stone tells me."

"Stone is correct, young Follows-Chalk," the Disciple said, shooting him a dangerous look that reminded him that normally a tribe member of his low standing was not permitted to simply walk into the cave.

He realised his action and looked at his feet sheepishly. The Courier noted with some amusement that he didn't actually back out of the cave, though.

"Someone explain?" the Courier asked again.

"The Aerie is a high place in Zion, a taboo place from the Time Before that looks down upon much of the valley. Joshua has gone there," the Disciple said, her grasp of a tongue the Courier understood helping bridge the gap where many other members of her tribe would have been insufficient.

The Dead Horses didn't and still don't speak a total English. Rather, their language changed over time when the Old World fell, and merged with a language that books still speak of today. I believe it was called 'Spanish', and it was part of a collection of languages from lands found across a great river, larger than the entire wasteland.

"So what does this have to do with me?"

"I will take him to meet Joshua," Chalk volunteered almost immediately.

"Why?" the Disciple questioned, cutting the young scout's enthusiasm in half with a single word.

He paused, intimidated by her authority – the Disciples of New Canaan were held in great reverence back then, as the entire tribe considered Joshua Graham a warrior unlike any they'd ever met, and those who worked with him shared some of that glory and respect.

The Courier took pity on the young man as he fumbled for an excuse to go and find his hero. "I need to find Joshua anyway, right? Otherwise I'm just sitting here in camp waiting. But I don't know the valley like you do. I need a guide to get me to the Aerie or I'll just end up wandering into another ambush," he petitioned, gesturing to the young man behind him.

The woman turned to another of the Disciples and they exchanged a few hushed words. Follows-Chalk gave the Courier a thanking smile, and quietly hoped.

The young scout was an adventurous sort, and his limited contact with the cultures outside the tribes of Utah had given rise to a grand curiosity about the lands behind those he knew. The Courier, an outsider not of the tribe of New Canaan, was another opportunity to learn about places he hoped to one day see himself.

"Very well, but you will speak to Joshua about this arrangement when you find him. Only if he wills it will you continue to guide the owslandr," the Disciple agreed. "He has taken Pale Omen to the Aerie to observe a White Legs party that has taken Dagger's Point."

Follows-Chalk's expression darkened at the news. "We met that party. They've moved south, taken the Spine," he said.

Everyone in the cavern was noticeably troubled by the scout's report. "They're attacking aggressively," the Courier observed, given the relatively short time that two locations had been taken.

"Not like White Legs," the Disciple breathed. "Tell Joshua."

The scout nodded. "Right away," he agreed, tapping the Courier on the shoulder. "Come."

Still confused, the Courier followed, retreating from the cavern and into the Dead Horse Camp.

The scout was already moving the way they had come. With little other choice, the Vagabond was on his tail. "Okay, call me slow, but I'm confused," he said, moving up to walk beside his young guide.

Despite the small war for Zion going on around him, Follows-Chalk was grinning as soon as he was out of the cave. The young man was excited about this.

An outsider had arrived in Zion; Joshua Graham was leading them in battle in a clash for paradise. An opportunity for young Follows-Chalk to prove his worth.

"What can I tell you?" Follows-Chalk asked, a phrase normally used to express a lack of knowledge.

The most interesting topic was immediately brought to the front of the conversation. "Joshua Graham."

"He's been the chief of our tribe since he came back to the valley," the scout explained, gesturing to the camp as they left it. "He went off to the civilised lands years ago to fight a war. That…didn't go well."

"I think I know which war you're talking about," Courier Six said, thinking back to just a short time ago.

"Well, before he left he didn't have those bandages all over his face. That tell you something?" the scout asked, hoping to coax more information than the Courier's vague answer.

"What do you know about Hoover Dam?"

"He doesn't talk about it much. I don't understand though. How can two civilised tribes fight over something as small as a dam?" Follows-Chalk wondered.

They were passing along the river once again, carefully avoiding the traps underneath the surface. The Aerie was still some distance away.

"Small? Hoover Dam's bigger than these cliffs," the Wanderer exclaimed, pointing at one of the high-reaching rock-faces they were passing.

"Hah!" Follows-Chalk laughed, looking over at his companion. The Courier's lack of humour told the young scout something about the 'civilised lands'. "…_really! _That's… my gods… must be some mighty civilised folks who built that!"

"Hah," the Wanderer chuckled. "Civilised is one way to put it. Not how I'd describe it, from what I've seen. Sure, there are good people, but… suffice to say it's not what you imagine."

"Now you sound like Joshua. He always says that tribal life is better. That I should stay here and forget the outside world," the scout said, looking out into the valley.

They both shared a laugh. "Alright, so that clears Joshua Graham up. Same man as the legends say. I am very much looking forward to asking how he survived his death. Maybe we're related," Courier Six said, only partially joking. The two really did share a link in that what would have been the death of other men was only a moment of change to them.

Follows-Chalk did not understand; the full story of Joshua Graham remained unknown to many of the Dead Horses. The Burned Man, as many knew him, preferred not to make his fall known to the tribes he walked amongst.

Not out of a desire to maintain his pride, you see. No, out of humility born in the months after his execution. Joshua Graham wore his failure on his skin every day, and he hoped to serve as an example to others, yet it did not stop the story from paining him. His own past was a dark tale of things that the man who existed now… did not agree with.

Zion rose before them again as they waded across the shallows of the river to a bank where a campsite had once been set up for visitors to paradise in the Time Before.

As he walked, the Courier opened his mouth to ask another question. Instead his stomach growled.

The scout laughed as he rummaged through his coat, only to find that his personal collection of food had dried up days ago. Jed and his caravan had been providing all of his meals recently, and now they were all dead.

He was so busy looking through his pockets he barely noticed a gecko waddling towards him curiously. Only when it let out a garbled screech and started charging did the young man become aware that in his hunger he'd let his guard down.

But Follows-Chalk was as capable a warrior as he was a scout; in his hand within moments was a pistol, blasting the gecko back as it attempted to charge the Courier.

Stunned and surprised by the sudden exchange the Wanderer stumbled back into a tree, letting out a grunt as he struck it.

Something heavy smacked him in the head, and in alarm he rolled forwards, his two firearms, the peculiar rifle-chambered revolver and the silver murder weapon, slipping from their places and into his hands, pointing at the bark.

He stared at it hard for a few seconds, putting his young guide on edge, but quickly he realised what had happened and laughed.

Confused, the Courier realised his mistake. Sitting on the ground where he'd been a moment ago was an apple. Hanging from the tree's branches were more of them. Zion provided.

Stepping forward he picked it up and observed the deep red object that had 'attacked' him. Deciding to strike back, he opened his maw and sank his teeth in with an immensely satisfying crunch.

You all know very well just how difficult it can be to find food in the wasteland. Trees are nothing but petrified black spears in the earth to many, and the colour green is a rare sight. Yet in Zion one could live almost exclusively upon the fruits of the land, to say nothing of the rich bounty in game. Some species had survived exclusively within Zion where they had otherwise died out across the rest of the world.

Perhaps to call them game would seem wrong, then, as it would be entirely possible to hunt multiple species to extinction within the space of a few days if one were truly dedicated to it.

Alas, that simply shows another of Zion's fragile innocences. A nation like the New California Republic would have turned Zion black for stripping it of its natural graces in the name of money.

Then, Caesar's Legion would no doubt approach it similarly.

"I've been here for about two hours, and in that time I've been ambushed, saved, nearly had a foot taken off by underwater bear traps, learned that a wasteland legend is actually real, been attacked by what has to be the biggest damn gecko I've ever seen, and I've found a fresh apple tree," the Courier summed up as the two began walking again, moving up the slope the gecko had been coming down and weaving through a few narrow slots in the stone that rose high all around them.

The sun was blazing out across the valley, still a considerable distance above the mountains. It made the great stone sentinels that ran all throughout the valley cast enormous shadows upon the earth.

"Some kind of day, neh?" Chalk observed, looking back towards the south, where the ambush had been. The road that came in from the south, eventually coming to the Spine.

"You bet it is. So what about you? 'Follows-Chalk', was it? Why do they call you that?" the Wanderer wondered.

"Our advance scouts leave chalk signs to mark places rich with game. I'm not a full scout yet, so I follow the marks and guide the hunters," the young man explained, seeing nothing strange about it.

The 'civilised' lands use names that are less about function or purpose and are instead selected based on what the parents believe is a good cipher to identify them with. The Dead Horses follow a more practical naming scheme, as we know.

"Hmm. I can see the sense in that," the Wanderer said, giving a sideways glance to his young guide.

"What about you, outsider? Do you have a name?" Follows-Chalk asked.

"I used to, but not anymore. I'll tell you the story of how I lost it sometime. For now though I'm just 'Courier Six'. The sixth messenger," the man in the grey coat answered. "I guess my name is like yours then, and not 'civilised' like Joshua."

The thought made Follows-Chalk pause. "Civilised lands use strange names. Why?"

"I guess because after a while it's hard to just call everyone a name based on their job. I mean, you're a scout in training, so Follows-Chalk is your name, right? Well in the civilised lands there are a hundred times as many people as there are Dead Horses. So if every scout in training was 'Follows-Chalk', you'd end up with a hundred Follows-Chalks," the Courier explained thoughtfully.

He'd never questioned the naming conventions of the 'civilised' lands. Like many other things they are simply pieces of society we have inherited from the Time Before which are accepted without question. Perhaps even the people of the Old World simply followed such conventions without knowing their meanings. I do not know.

"Wow. Sounds so strange," the scout said, looking up at the sky. "A hundred Follows-Chalks. Would get pretty confusing at Christmas!"

"At what?"

"Christmas. Joshua says it is a special time of the year to do with a legendary figure," Follows-Chalk explained. "He says it has changed a lot throughout the years, but that at heart it was supposed to be a time of family and worship."

"I see. How's that confusing?"

"He said that in the Back When it became tradition to give all your loved ones gifts on that day. Imagine having a gift that says 'Follows-Chalk' and trying to give it to the right one out of a hundred! Hah!" the young man laughed.

The Wanderer smirked at his humour. In many ways Follows-Chalk was still a child. "So what about this place we're going, the Aerie? And the 'Pale Omen' there?"

Immediately Follows-Chalk's humour disappeared. "Pale Omen," he repeated, deadpan.

"I take it it's not a popular topic."

"No. He is one of them," the scout began to explain.

"White Legs?" the Courier guessed correctly.

Follows-Chalk nodded, gesturing up a slope. "One of them. Son of their chief, Salt-Upon-Wounds. Joshua captured him months ago, and is trying to turn him against the White Legs. He says it would be good for us in more ways than one."

"Not in agreement?"

"Pale Omen is not the name the White Legs give him. We do not know what that is, nor do we know anything else about him. He does not speak our language, and even Joshua has trouble understanding him. He attacks us every chance he gets, and only respects Joshua. Right now Pale Omen is little more than an animal who heels only to him."

"So he took him up to this Aerie to show him the White Legs are bad?" Courier Six wondered. "Seems a little too simple, don't you think?"

Follows-Chalk tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

The Wanderer pointed up the slope. "From up there you must have a fantastic view, so Joshua can show him a lot of Zion and try to convince him of how dangerous the White Legs are, sure, but hasn't he been doing that already? What's special about this time? For all Joshua knows Dagger's Point was just another attack."

"But what else would Joshua be doing up there?"

"Shall we go ask him?"

The scout was confused by the Courier's observations, but underneath that was curiosity fuelled by his enthusiasm. The outsider was a catalyst for change and new experiences, something Follows-Chalk thirsted endlessly for.

They made their way up the slope quietly, before finally the Aerie came into view. A tall radio tower stood proudly upon the high ground. The Aerie itself was an Old World building standing on a foundation of stone, with pieces of wood set in the soil to hold up the balcony that ran around its outside. A staircase ran along the side of the building, running upwards and then doubling back on itself to finish the ascent.

There was only one room inside, a small area that afforded some seating or shelter if it was necessary.

"Where is Joshua?" Follows-Chalk wondered, moving towards the building.

Indeed, neither he nor Pale Omen were to be seen.

"Let's see if we can find them from up here," the Courier offered, making his way up the stairs and looking out over Zion from one of its high places.

The valley was slowly losing light, and soon night would be upon it. The time when the nocturnal beings truly live and when those who work in secret are free to move as they wish.

The small station perched atop the hill seemed to be completely empty. The Burned Man was nowhere to be seen, and when the Courier looked out over the valley he could not see any presence upon Dagger's Point.

Something was wrong. Joshua Graham wasn't at the Aerie.

At least, not as far as either Courier Six or Follows-Chalk could tell.

Sighing, the Courier leaned over the rail of the balcony and stared at the blue sky. His eyes were drawn to something far off in the West, a shadow atop one of the cliffs of Zion.

The stories of what happened next have changed throughout the years. Nobody is sure exactly what took place within those moments. The stories the Courier told about it were intentionally vague, and Follows-Chalk's retelling was subject to his imagination and desire for a more fantastic life.

As time went on the truth became muddied and embellished, like all legends from that era are; the insides of the Big Empty, the Battle of Hidden Valley, the Divide, the Leader of the Chairmen's death, the treasure of the Sierra Madre, Hoover Dam, the Vault 3 incident… many legends were born in such a small time.

One story says that the Courier stared out into the distance, and the Courier stared back. Their eyes met across impossible distances, and held each other in something partway between handshake and uneasy battle stance.

Another story says that the Courier far away took one step closer and threw a spear, a flagstaff through the air with such force and skill that it pierced the wooden side of the Aerie, missing Courier Six by only the barest distance.

Some have said that the two shared a conversation only a few moments long across that impossible gap, whispered words travelling on intangible winds between them and divulging truths no one else will ever know.

A popular one is that the figure far away drew a six in the air with his finger, barely noticeable so far away. Courier Six did the same in response, a message or signal sent from one to the other.

Or perhaps Courier Six merely stared out across Zion, brow furrowed, as he tried to ascertain what the shadow on the cliffs so far away was. Willing his eyes to focus on it, struggling to see something that might have been important.

Regardless of what transpired, it commonly follows that the figure turned and walked away, a staff in hand as a walking stick, the gold glinting as the sunlight caught it.

The shadow of a Courier disappeared into the setting sun.

"Outsider?"

"Who is that? Who… am I?"

"Courier Six?"

"Courier!"

Pulled unceremoniously from the fractured world inside his mind, the Wanderer looked across at the scout. Follows-Chalk was watching him, confused and cautious.

"Did I miss something?" he wondered.

Follows-Chalk continued watching him. "You stared off into the distance for a long time. I thought maybe you were sleeping with your eyes open," he said, half-joking.

Courier Six realised that his scar was stinging. It had been some time since it had done that. "Did you see him?"

"Who?"

"The man on the cliffs. He was right where the sun rested on them."

The scout stared out into the west. As the Vagabond said, the sun was beginning to slip down behind the walls of Zion, but whatever shadow had dwelled there was gone now.

"There's nobody there," the scout confirmed.

The Courier shook his head. "Not now. He walked away," he explained. "You didn't see him?"

"It's far away. I didn't see."

Gunfire shattered the calm, setting both men on edge. It was far away, but still within the valley. Automatic weapons fire mixed with harsh and powerful blasts of sound.

"That's coming from the north," the Courier observed, striding from the southwest edge of the Aerie to the north and looking out over the valley.

"No, northwest," Follows-Chalk clarified, bolting to the Aerie's corner. Though partially obscured by the trees, the young man proved his ability, pointing out across the valley towards one of the few remaining bridges that crossed the north river.

"White Legs, definitely White Legs," the Courier growled.

"They're attacking the bridge," Follows-Chalk said after a moment. "They're trying to take the North Fork Bridge!"

Courier Six looked through the trees and could see the White Legs fighting with another tribe. This one was neither they nor Dead Horses; instead they seemed to be dressed in dark blue cloths in minimalist style. He couldn't see very well, but one seemed to have an enormous black gauntlet.

"That isn't your tribe," he observed.

"No. Sorrows!" Follows-Chalk said in a panic, leaping over the rail of the Aerie and rolling as he hit the ground. "We have to help them!"

Alarmed by the speed and ferocity of the scout all of a sudden, the Courier wasted no time in following him over the side of the Aerie.

Not as graceful as the young scout, the Vagabond rolled as he hit the ground, coming to a stop with his limbs splayed before pulling himself up and promptly coming face to face with one of the White Legs.

Follows-Chalk was already running towards the battle, leaving the Courier alone.

The man before him was chalky pale, green eyes glinting in the dusk. His teeth were angular and bared in something of a snarl, with three lines of red running from his bottom lip to his chin. Around his eyes there were more marks; two red drops upside down, curving on his cheeks, and on his forehead underneath a mass of braided hair were two horns of blood, small but more elaborate than the crude designs on his chin and eyes.

His chest was bare, showing mock scars made from the same ink as the rest of his tattoos, and his legs were clad in the tanned leather hide that belonged to what Courier Six did not at the time know was a Deathclaw.

He went for his machete in defence, but far faster than he could move the tribal had tackled him, sending them both tumbling down the hillside in a flurry of fists.

They crashed into a rock partway down and split apart, coughing and gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him.

"Utman no dovred vene qui!" he barked over his shoulder, gasping in another lung of air before coughing.

The Wanderer's machete was in his hand this time, having recovered faster than his opponent. He paused a moment to look at the tattoo that took up the tribal's entire back. A circle of stars, twelve of them like the numbers of a clock face. Running like linear blood smears down his back, beginning just a short distance from the stars at the base of the circle, were five columns of red. In the middle of the circle, bold and prominent, was one final star, a larger thirteenth contained within the other twelve.

The flag of the Old World, tattooed upon his back in blood.

He hesitated too long, and suddenly the pale creature had spun, a glove with the foreleg of an enormous praying mantis attached on his arm.

The machete moved too, and suddenly the blade was at his opponent's throat just as the sharpened point of the mantis gauntlet reached his own.

"Uvecht cambatte een coltiery diario!" he snarled, refusing to back down.

"So's your mother," the Courier spat back, having no idea what was being said to him.

Both held the other's glare, each man assessing the best moment to strike without getting himself killed.

Instead, a third man offered a resolution.

"Omen! Parada!"

Immediately Pale Omen moved the gauntlet away and turned to meet the man running down the slope towards them.

The Courier did the same, and had absolutely no doubt that the man approaching him was Joshua Graham, the legendary Burned Man.


	20. Wild Card: The Spy's Duel

__This is a little something different today. While everything happening in Zion is important to the Courier, the war in the Mojave is still being fought, and situations are arising without the aid of mailmen. Wild Cards are going to be looks in on a small circle of other characters from varying walks of life and how they're observing, affecting, and reacting to situations surrounding the Nevada conflict.

What's the point? On one hand it's keeping eyes on the Mojave so it doesn't become too foreign in light of everything happening in Utah, and on the other hand it's a chance to look at other people. As a courier, the player character always views these organisations from the outside, being an independent entity that may choose to align with them if they want, and with enough firepower can singlehandedly destroy them (well, Six isn't quite as invincible). So here's an opportunity to look in on these people and factions from what I hope is a more in-depth angle.

In other news, how many of you have seen Snatch and/or Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels? To this day, Guy Ritchie has never made better movies.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Wild Card<strong>_

_**The Spy's Duel**_

_XXIV_

_XI_

_MMCCLXXXVIII_

It was bedlam. Glorius and violent, order and chaos dancing a bloody number upon the dry and cracked earth.

The troops were in disarray – completely incapable of regulating themselves long enough to clearly react as the men of the east crushed them underfoot.

He wasn't there to kill with them though, just to enable, and to watch. For that was his role: a frumentarius found weakness, learned of their enemy, understood their minds and their lands.

With that the Legionaries could exploit the weakness, bend the knowledge back upon their foes, and break both their minds and their lands.

It was _glorious_.

A young man burst from his tent in panic, no armour upon him, his loose clothing unevenly stuffed into his pants in an attempt reminiscent of proper conduct. His eyes were wide, and in his hand he held a pistol.

He turned as a woman raced past him, and the legionary behind her reacted quickly; before the young man could even bring the gun up the gladius had slammed into his arm, forcing him to drop his weapon.

The headbutt that followed knocked him to his knees where he yelped and began to cry.

The legionary didn't bother wasting time. The man was a coward to have fallen apart so quickly, and the blade through his throat was his just rewards.

The woman returned, firing at him with a revolver she'd snatched from some worthless soldier, killed in the first wave. The first shot slammed into his shoulder, completely absorbed by the heavy padding and metal.

He roared and charged, blade in hand, but her shaking hands fired every round she could in blind terror. Most went wide or were absorbed by the armour, slowing him down but not harming, but two met flesh. The first in his leg, forcing him into a lower position, and it was that which allowed the second to explode through his cheek, sending him tumbling backwards, alive but in incredible agony.

Her weapon empty the terrified soldier dropped it and went for the legionary's sword, a weapon she was not used to and could not use from a distance, but one that would not run out of ammunition like the NCR's beloved guns.

Part of her mind seemed to catch up to the battle around her and she grabbed the pistol from the dead soldier her first kill had slain in front of her eyes.

"Legion bastards!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, turning with a sword in one hand and a gun in the other.

For just a moment, he stared at her from his perch, his grinning eyes bright and dangerous. She looked like a warrior in those few seconds, weapons in hand, blood on her face, fire in her eyes.

She'd be something to see in the arena, he thought.

She kept her eyes on him for far too long; a split second too long and another legionary burst from a tent and struck her in the head with the pommel of his blade.

Yelping, she stumbled and attempted to right herself before the next blow came, but instead of blocking a sword as she intended, she was kicked in the leg, dropping to a knee, before the second strike shattered her nose and knocked her, bleeding, to the ground.

To her credit, she maintained consciousness for a few moments more, but that winked out as the legionary's savage kick ensured she would not wake any time soon.

Forlorn Hope they called it. The name was fitting. A disorganised band of fools struggling to hold a meaningless piece of land after the victory at Nelson.

Now they would hold nothing, and the NCR would realise just another in a long list of failures and mistakes, starting long before the greedy, overreaching eyes of Kimball had stared at Hoover Dam.

One man, of prominent rank it seemed, was holding off three legionaries alone, a machine gun in his arms keeping them pressed back behind a supply shed.

One of the legionaries dispelled a common misconception amongst green NCR soldiers: the Legion does not restrict the use of firearms.

The hunting rifle fired, tearing a chunk off the man's arm and leaving him clutching desperately to both his rifle and his life, knowing both would be lost to him before the sun rose on a new day.

Striking in the night was something of a cliché military tactic, but not that was with good reason. Blind spots in the guard walls allowed small groups of soldiers to slip in already, and a cunning frumentarius could slay the west-facing guards quietly and leave a hole big enough for a contubernia to break through, followed by another.

According to his scouting, Forlorn Hope numbered in at around forty men, with those numbers in a constant rise and fall thanks to new recruits who had never seen battle being dragged into one of the most dangerous camps NCR still owned and the Legion's aggressive destruction of said new recruits.

A contubernia was a squad of eight men, led by a decanus. Sixteen men had appeared in Camp Forlorn Hope by midnight, and the soldiers hadn't even noticed. Of course, when the screams started and the man giving orders was simultaneously lying on the ground in his tent and being kicked around by his fleeing subordinates on the dirty path, the soldiers noticed that they had been compromised.

One man, a cocky upstart who fashioned himself as a leader, had attempted to rally a small group. It had worked for a few brief moments, and between him and the four men and women he'd managed to draft into his impromptu squad he'd managed to bring down three legionaries.

It would have been impressive, and might even have been the action that saved the entire camp had the rest of the centuriae not arrived.

Sixty-four soldiers devoured the camp, leaving the mindless idiots of the NCR to collapse into terror, begging for their life, pleading to be taken as slaves over certain death. Some got their wish.

Others screamed in defiance that the NCR would accomplish freedom or they would die trying. A poor choice of words, given that all eventually wound up in the category of their consolation prize.

The Scorpion grinned as he watched his brothers flank the wounded gunman, trying futilely to hoist his weapon and fight them back.

One took a run, leaping into the air and driving his blade into the neck of the bear, using his own weight and the momentum he gained in his jump to drive it deep, burying it to the hilt down into the man's neck and obliterating what little life he had left.

The man had died fighting, and for that Silvius silently applauded him. Too many from the West died pleading and debasing themselves.

To the east of the fallen gunner was the medical tent. A young man in a white coat tripped backwards out of it, crawling backwards as a decanus strode through the tent flap behind him, holding the severed head of the camp's primary medic.

The doctor whimpered as the head was tossed towards him, catching it on reflex and then dropping it in horror as his hand felt the gore beneath the former medic's chin.

He couldn't hear what the doctor was saying, but it was almost certainly another pleading attempt at bargaining for his life. It was one of two things; claiming that he wasn't directly involved in the conflict and should therefore be allowed to leave the battle without helping or hindering either side, or trying to use whatever skills he had as a bargaining chip to buy himself a stake as a slave.

Silvius sighed as the chaos continued. Looking east he could see the rising cliffs on the other side of the wide Colorado River, the edge of true Legion territory. Far beyond the Fort and Flagstaff was the rift in the land where the Legion had been born, and years later, so had he.

That great opening in the earth had existed for many years before the Great War, but the depths it vanished into the earth had only become greater as the entire world shifted and changed.

Down in that darkness there had been a few tribes. Their names were gone now, and Silvius didn't care to remember them. They were tribes that existed before the Legion, and now they were the Legion. Any information beyond that was unnecessary.

His parents might have been anyone, too. His mother might have been a shamaness, if the roots from which he'd been born had practiced such before time changed. Maybe his father had become a centurion.

He'd never met them, and he'd never know them even if they stood right in front of him. For all he knew one of the men slaughtering the last fragments of Forlorn Hope below him could have been a blood relative.

But such knowledge was unnecessary. The legionaries were his family. Their bonds were forged in battle and blood, not simply assumed and expected because of genetic similarities.

Life was stronger for him this way. He would not rush to the aid of a weakling and leave the Legion to wither just because of a hereditary attachment.

The last soldier was holding out well. A ranger, it seemed. A veteran at that; the NCR's best. The ones truly worthy of fighting against Caesar's mightiest.

While the rangers of New California were competent and worth their stake in battle, it was the veteran rangers who truly proved spectacular adversaries – this one was an example of just such ability.

Having run out of ammunition for the heavy pistol he carried, the ranger had thrown the weapon at a legionary, stunning him long enough for the man to shoulder charge his foe, knocking him backwards, but at the same time his hand shot forward and yanked the gladius from the legionary's hand.

Unarmed, the legionary had attempted to retreat, but the ranger revealed a second weapon, another heavy pistol like the last, and he fired, shattering the spine of the retreating warrior with the bullet.

Three spears were pointed at his throat before he could turn back to the fray.

"Stop!" Silvius called, dropping from his perch and making his way through the camp to the ranger, who glared at him.

"So you're the traitor," he spat.

Silvius shrugged and smiled. "I cannot be called a traitor if I never honestly believed in your cause," he countered.

The gun came up and pointed at him. The Scorpion knew that a ranger like this only needed time to fire once and he'd cease to breathe, even if the ranger was killed within the following second. But the Scorpion knew that threatening a dead man was exuded nothing but vanity, and he would not be seen to be so base amongst is own.

"I do not intend to talk down to you, ranger. I do not intend to make idle threats, or explain to you the ways in which the West is flawed. You have seen it, and you have judged for yourself that she is worth fighting for – and it is how you fight for her that has earned you a place above these other degenerates," Silvius spoke calmly.

His tone and approach put the ranger on edge. It was smooth, and true to his word there were no threats issued. Instead a declaration of respect.

The legionaries with weapons aimed seemed put off by the approach as well.

"I'm not joining your horde of raping murderers, spy. Kill me if you're going to," the ranger said plainly. He was already aware he was going to die, and he was facing it with dignity and defiance. Admirable. The doctor would be crucified for cowardice, but this man deserved an honourable death, if that at all.

Silvius looked at the gun. "Put the gun down. I have an offer for you. Nothing so insulting as asking you to betray your ideals," he said, leaving the ranger hanging on what exactly, but intriguing him just enough to make the gun lower somewhat.

"Talk," he said suspiciously.

The Spy looked the man up and down. He was lean, a little thinner than he needed to be. Blue eyes, dark brown hair, typical veteran ranger uniform; riot gear from the Old World underneath a long coat. Scrap-metal bracer on the left arm, jeans with riot knee-guards, and non-uniform boots. He'd forgotten his helmet in the confusion, and it showed that he didn't do that often. He was pale.

"You and I are both aware that in every situation currently available to you, your death is assured, no matter how many of us you kill in the process. Now, while I know the glory of killing as many as possible is appealing in its own suicidal way, I don't think you deserve to die cornered like an animal. Among this entire camp, you're one of the few who show true skill, and true puritas. So I issue you a challenge," the frumentarius explained, pacing in front of his foe.

The ranger stayed quiet, but the gun was drooping lower. Evidently he was listening.

"Fight me. A duel to the death, just the two of us. No unnecessary armour, no gunfire. If I win, then your situation changes nothing. You will die, as every other outcome dictates you shall. Win, though, and I promise you will walk from this camp without incident, as long as you give us the same courtesy. My last living act will be to promise you safe passage, before you prove to me that you've earned that right," the Scorpion explained.

The ranger was clearly put off by the idea, before considering it.

"How do I know I won't just get slaughtered as soon as I jam this sword through your face?" he demanded.

Silvius smiled and chuckled, before looking to the decanus, who had arrived to observe the battle.

"Identify yourself, decanus," Silvius instructed.

The man looked at him through the goggles he wore. "Dead Sea, frumentarius. I led these troops into the camp with your intelligence," he introduced.

"Decanus Dead Sea, should I fall in a duel against this ranger, he will walk from this camp alive, with any supplies he wishes to take from the NCR's stockpile here, understood? I have challenged him, and should he prove worthy, he has earned both his life and his freedom. No carrion will feast upon him and no chains will sour his arms," the frumentarius announced.

He was making more of a show of it than he needed to, but he couldn't help himself. He had an audience, and he was happy to play to it.

The ranger weighed it in his mind, and finally decided that he had nothing else to lose. To be able to slay the traitor, at his own insistence, was, as said traitor pointed out, a better deal than anything else he was about to be offered.

Silvius slipped his coat off and pulled a machete from the hands of a dead legionary. Swinging it through the air, he tested its weight, before finally tossing it aside and taking another.

The ranger's eyes narrowed, but finally he began to pull the hefty riot armour off. Eventually both men stood with nothing more than their clothing on them, the heavier protective garments all stripped away.

Both held in their hands a single blade.

"So then, ranger. Wield only your blade and the battle ends when one of us is dead. No yielding. No retreat. Victory or death," Silvius commanded.

"Let's get it over with, then," the ranger sighed, testing how the blade felt in his hands. The New California Republic cared little for melee weapons. They loved their guns and bombs, like the Old World before them.

Without warning Silvius charged, signalling the beginning of the duel.

The ranger stepped back and brought the gladius up to block, repelling the quick overhead Silvius struck with.

The Scorpion stepped back and grinned as the ranger felt combat the adrenaline begin to flow. Now they would fight like warriors.

The ranger attempted a slash, which Silvius jumped back to avoid before moving forward, bringing the weapon upwards, towards his leg.

The blow cut only air as his opponent stepped back and brought his blade up across his front, keeping his chest guarded.

Circling each other, both men exchanged glances. The ranger was alert, adrenaline in his veins and battle the only thing on his mind. Silvius was calm, smiling, his blade at his side in a teasingly overconfident manner.

Taking what he thought was an opportunity, his opponent lunged, slashing at his right arm – the one not holding the sword.

Silvius never stopped smiling as he spun, taking his eyes off his foe for a split second to bring his weapon across and parry the enemy's strike. The ranger stumbled back, the failure knocking his confidence back down a notch and fanning the flames in his mind.

Silvius approached quickly in the wake of his opponent's failure, slamming his blade into the other's, the clang of metal ringing out each time the ranger was forced backwards at Silvius' aggression, before finally he relented, stepping back again and letting the ranger choose the pace of the next flurry.

"You're not bad. If you'd ever trained with a blade in your hand I believe you might have already slain me," Silvius commented, watching the ranger's eyes go from his sword to him and back again.

The ranger's grip noticeably tightened on the weapon. "Cold comfort now," he said through clenched teeth, keeping his mind on avoiding the next strike.

Silvius was lying, of course. As a frumentarius it was almost compulsive to do so, but regardless of his own skill, he could see the potential in the ranger. Had he learned to wield it properly, he'd have been an admirable warrior.

With no knowledge natural talent was only going to keep him alive so long though, and while he'd promised to let him walk free, Silvius had never considered the possibility that the ranger would actually succeed. He'd simply admired his foe, and decided to give him a more admirable death.

Behind him two young soldiers had been bound and were forced to their knees to watch the battle. Presumably one knew the ranger, because as Silvius looked across at her, her eyes snapped to the ranger immediately, and widened with just the barest touch of hope.

She'd cling to the memory for years; the last moment she saw a man of the NCR stand up the Legion. How fitting it should end like it would.

The ranger charged again, sick of waiting for an attack Silvius would never throw, and stumbled wide as the Scorpion thrust his body weight diagonally, flicking the blade across the gladius as it came down in an overhead, watching it slide off the side.

He brought the blade up over his head and pointed it at the ranger, holding it high like a scorpion's tail, ready to sting.

The change in stance set his opponent on edge further. He could see it in the ranger's eyes that he knew he was outmatched. Grim determination pushed him on, a flicker of hope holding out for the chance to catch a lucky blow and end the battle.

Circling again, the enemy's blue eyes locked against his own, and Silvius smiled widely. "This is what the NCR lacks," he said. "With a gun you can kill a man without ever looking into his eyes."

"Easy enough to do the same with a sword," the ranger countered, twirling it in hand and making another assault. He brought it across towards Silvius' face, a blow the frumentarius effortlessly tossed aside by bringing the stinger down to let it slide harmlessly up the blade.

Exactly as the ranger had expected.

The gladius slid up the machete before trailing an arc through the air aimed at Silvius' leg.

He threw himself forward, rolling and feeling his blade slip from his grip as he did so. For a moment in time he panicked, the calm accuracy and predictability of the fight briefly shattered, before he placed one arm on the ground and anchored himself, spinning around onto his knee and looking to see his opponent.

Impressive. He'd taken his chance and was moving towards him aggressively, ready to skewer the defenceless spy.

"Just go for the back!" the ranger declared, bringing the sword around in a diagonal.

Hissing, Silvius rolled away from the slash and quickly rose to his feet.

His blade, where was it!

The ranger had smartly positioned himself between the two separated team mates, and was advancing upon him.

He wasn't going to be able to block any of the blows, so his course of action would rightfully be to employ a strong offence and knock the enemy off-guard.

Perhaps his foe would suspect it, but the situation had been flipped, and the Scorpion needed to regain composure and control, or there would be a ranger walking free, ready to boast all manner of things.

A glance was spared for the woman watching the ranger. The hope in her eyes was bright now. He'd gained the upper hand. He was going to win. He'd walk free and somehow he'd take her with him. He'd become a victory beacon, like Hanlon, leader of the rangers.

The ranger stepped closer and Silvius lunged, tackling him. He didn't have time to bring the blade in front of him before the body of his opponent struck, knocking him backwards.

He stumbled over the Scorpion's blade and sent it towards its wielder. "You have my gratitude," Silvius said, leaning down to pick it up. "I was hoping I'd get this back."

"Fuuuuuck," the ranger snarled, knowing that he'd just lost the best chance he was going to get.

Gripping his weapon tightly, Silvius let out a deep breath and prepared himself for another assault. The ranger would be desperate now, aggressive.

Sure enough, he didn't have to move far before his foe was taking another swing, one which he parried before stepping aside of a second.

His foe was demoralised and weakened.

The blade rose up like a Scorpion's stinger once more.

The ranger could see what it meant, but he wasn't prepared to give in.

Good man.

Silvius made the assault this time, flicking it down in a headsplitter and then slipping to the left as the blade clanged against his foe's, swiping down at his stomach. Again, he managed to parry, but slower this time.

Another flick, this time at his arm. He barely managed to stop the strike before stepping back and gripping the blade in both hands. His knuckles were white.

Silvius stood still, watching and smiling. "You're a good man, ranger. A strong warrior. A pity you owed allegiance to the Bear."

"Better them than your nation," the ranger growled, striking. Silvius flicked it aside on instinct.

"You judge us without even knowing us. You see our armies and you call us monsters. So you should, but seldom do any of you wonder what Arizona true must be like," the Scorpion pointed out truthfully, though the ranger was no happy to be lectured by this man.

He slammed his blade against Silvius' with surprising force. "And what would you call what you do?" he demanded.

"I have seen the West. Admittedly, not all of it, but then I doubt you've seen every corner of your homeland either," Silvius countered. "I have seen and I have formed an opinion on it."

"Well I hope nobody from California ever has to look at the Arizona you've made!" the ranger roared, making his last strike.

Silvius stepped right this time, the blade flicking out and tapping the foe's weapon as it struck, knocking the strike off just enough to avoid the blade.

"She will," Silvius said, and the ranger had just enough time to look at the captive woman before the Scorpion went for the neck. The venom of steel went straight through the artery and in one perfect strike the ranger was felled, collapsing to his knees and slumping, eyes glazing over.

"ALLEN!" the woman screamed, watching him tilt forward and finally collapse into a growing pool of his own blood.

The spy tossed his weapon aside, tilting his head back and breathing deeply. Things had gotten away from him for a moment. Exhilarating, though a little worrying. His time spent amongst those in the Mojave might have been dulling his skill. He couldn't let that happen.

"Give him a proper burial," Silvius instructed. "He was a warrior, not a child like the rest of these profligates."

"He was an enemy," Dead Sea commented, moving forward to take the gladius from the ranger's fallen form, observing the blood on it. "Why bother?"

The Scorpion looked around. It would be some time before dawn broke, but already Forlorn Hope was lost to the Californians. What few men and women might still have been holding out were doing so knowing full-well what was going to happen when finally they were discovered, and were under no illusions that they would be able to hide forever.

"He was a _worthy _enemy. That is the difference," Silvius replied finally. "The NCR call us monsters. We must make this the truth – in battle. In victory, we have no need of this mantle. I believe that, whether friend or foe, a man of strength and skill is a man to be respected. This ranger has earned it."

He could not read Dead Sea's expression under the face-wrap and goggles he wore, but he could sense the curiosity. Beyond that, Dead Sea merely did not understand the concept Silvius was presenting him. "If you say so," he concluded finally, nodded to the legionaries. They set about fulfilling Silvius' command.

The woman was crying quietly, staring at the corpse of the man she presumably had a strong relationship with.

There would be many more like her before the war ended.


	21. Those Who Sow in Tears

__A return to our friend in Zion and his new allies. Not much to say about this one other than enjoy, everyone!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Those Who Sow in Tears<strong>_

_Date of Log: 18th November, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: 11-15-76_

Seems that encounter with the 80s has got me thinking about my days as a tribal. Well, tribal/raider. The Great Khans were an offshoot, more civilised, but they still spent a lot of their time attacking the NCR. Only ever the NCR though. It was some kind of tribe code. Guess it came from the general consensus of hatred towards them for basically shoving the Khans out of California.

They were ground down a lot, the Khans. Some of it they brought down on themselves though, that's for sure. Their founding as a clan of raiders was a curious thing. If the wind had blown differently they'd have wiped out Shady Sands before Aradesh had a chance to even suggest forming a nation in an alcohol induced daydream.

Wait, who the hell is Aradesh?

…

Founder of the New California Republic. Alright, so apparently I know some national history. Succeeded by Tandi, his daughter, for like a century. Huh, I thought democracy was supposed to involve swapping leaders. I'm getting off track, this is just rambling about those jarheads west of my dry Mojave sands.

But then, it's important to the Khans as their birthplace and the reason they're in the Mojave now. Pushed out as part of a purge of all the tribes and clans who refused to be swallowed by that expanding civilisation.

Now the Mojave's in the same state, slowly being eaten by the bear. Only thing that's stopped it is the Legion, and they're a whole different kind of monster. They don't slowly devour something, they subjugate. Hard.

Jed's been telling me stories about them. What they did to their 'Legate', Joshua Graham. Burning him alive, throwing him into the Grand Canyon. I never did end up seeing the Grand Canyon, but dad sure made it sound like a long drop. Nasty way to go.

Other things they did too, stuff about conquering tribes and taking out people all over Arizona. They hit hard and fast, and they really kicked those tribals' asses.

Honestly, I'm pretty impressed. Caesar's one guy leading an army that's mostly just savages, and he did in half as long what the NCR is still struggling to accomplish today.

If it weren't for the whole crucifixion thing I probably would have enjoyed my chat with Mr. Fox.

Jed had a story about him too: Vulpes Inculta he's called. 'Wul-pez'. Crazy bastards and their tribal dialect. Just use English! Then again, I think it's based on an old language, one from somewhere not America.

Either way, the rumours about him float around a lot. Just the name though, since he's one of Caesar's top spies. Not sure how he manages to spy with hair paper white like that, but I suppose he was blending in well enough with the crowd at Vegas.

But I digress. These logs are supposed to be for my dreams and memories, not for me to just sit down and talk to myself. And yes, future Six, I'm aware of the irony in saying that and then going back to recording.

The Mojave heat felt different today, after all that had happened. Just days ago I had left the Great Khans and my best friends Chance and Alyssa behind, not knowing then that it would be the last time I saw good old Chance.

That anger that had burned so strongly within me had ebbed as time went on. It had run its course, that disease of hate, and now I was on the road to recovery. I wouldn't say I was necessarily a happier man for all that had happened before joining them, or even my time with them, but I felt… fresh. Like I'd finally gotten it all off my back, and now I was ready to open a new chapter.

The Long 15 stretched out before me, a road down to Primm yet to be walked. I'd stop in, see if any Courier jobs were going past Wolfhorn or out west, and then start walking in whichever direction the next package was taking me.

A leaf on the breeze, nothing but me and my feet. The life of a wanderer.

Yeah, I'd inherited that from dad, alright. His whole clan had been wanderers, and they'd made a legend out of it. They walked all over Nevada, taking on raiders to keep the roads safe, watching over travellers as they passed over the desert sands. He even told me a story about how once, a long, long time ago, they pushed a crime lord right out of Vegas, back before the Securitrons and House. Destroyed an entire criminal empire.

I was a born nomad, destined for it from day one I'd say, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I'd seen a lot already, and I was still just a young man ready to walk the next road.

Yes, I wanted to go back and visit my mother. I'd take a package going east and stop in to say hello. See how things were after everything else.

Hah, I was like Chance. Even Great Khans love their mothers.

So that was it. Just me and the Long 15, like so many times before and after it.

I was philosophical. Calm. I still had a quiet disgust of the larger nations, but I didn't vent it by blowing up their communication stations anymore.

Although ignoring the murder, that _was _pretty funny. And after the party, sneaking off with Alyssa down into that cave… heh.

She hadn't been happy to see me go. At first she'd tried to find it in her to understand and accept, but very quickly that had given way to more fiery emotions. First sorrow, then a violent shift into anger. For a few days I was a traitor to our tribe. Scum good for nothing but running.

Finally though, that had relented, and she had returned to sorrow, this time more peacefully. She simply didn't want me to go. Neither did Chance. But both understood why I was doing it, and they didn't try to stop me when the time finally came.

Oh man, those last few days were something. They insisted my last week amongst the Khans be one to remember. It sure as hell was, except for Tuesday through Friday. Tuesday Chance approaches me with a bottle of two hundred year old wine and tells me he found a whole cellar, scotch included. Next thing I know I'm waking up on top of Jack and Diane's trailer and wearing nothing but a Cazador's wings as a toga.

Never again.

I think I drank once more in my entire life following that little bender.

With that behind me, I was on my way to my next nexus of destiny, travelling down a road that linked the two: the Great Khans on into whatever would happen when or after I arrived at Wolfhorn.

Wasn't quite prepared for the welcome I got though.

_~2246~_

_The Followers encounter a cache of books on ancient Rome. The soon-to-be Caesar studies them intently, and is fascinated by the ideas within._

Courier Six had fought battles before. Taken shelter behind tables and Old World billboards to avoid the bullets of enemies as they whizzed past. Coordinated small teams of people to flank and suppress groups larger than his ragtag band.

He'd faced hostage situations and come out on top, even, and though he'd never totally mastered the gun his father had left him, he'd always thought of himself as a fairly capable gunslinger, all things considered. Not the best, but nothing to scoff at.

None of it was like fighting alongside Joshua Graham.

What the Burned Man did was barely even described as battle. It was complete ruination upon whichever fools put themselves in his way.

He moved towards the battle, a sleek silver pistol in hand. Covered head to toe in bandages to hide and keep clean his burns. The only thing visible underneath it were his eyes, crystalline and blue, sharp and deep, and the flesh around it, seared by his exile from Caesar's Legion. Over that he wore a torn and battered pair of jeans, and a white cloth shirt embroidered with Dead Horses symbols and markings to commemorate his successes in battle. Over that he worse something more practical – a Kevlar vest, a kind of item of clothing from the Time Before specifically made to stop bullets. It was by no means completely bullet-proof, but it could turn a fatal shot into little more than kinetic force if the weapon used was not high calibre.

The tribals on the bridge were trying to fight back as best they could, but it was clear to the Wanderer that they were not a people who often fought. They didn't even wield firearms, instead trying to hold off the White Legs and their machine guns with spears and arrows, the bravest of them charging with enormous gauntlets formed by the hands of fallen Yao Guai.

The Sorrows, they were called. A tribe that had been born in Zion and had never seen battle until the chalk-bodied ones arrived.

The Burned Man led the charge, cutting a ghostly figure as he arrived in the midst of the one-sided skirmish like a recently arisen phantom. Until then the White Legs were completely overpowering the Sorrows.

Both his weapons drawn, Courier Six followed, selecting the nearest rock of cover size and dropping himself into place behind it. Follows-Chalk followed his lead, drawing a pistol of the same make as Joshua's; it was something of a signature weapon to the tribe, though Joshua's was wholly unique.

Pale Omen followed Joshua, baring his teeth to one of the few members of the Sorrows who was truly attempting to fight back as he past. She glared at him in response, hurling another spear over the length of the bridge.

Like the Dead Horses the Sorrows were all covered in markings and tattoos, more skin was covered by them than by their clothing.

Joshua's first shot was perfect, blasting a hole straight through the head of a cocky tribal before he dived forwards onto the bridge and fired a storm of bullets, emptying the clip.

Three more opponents sprouted holes, one more of them dead instantly, another fatally wounded, thrown to the ground to bleed out in grotesque serenity, unable to appropriately articulate his agony as the nicked artery quickly spilled his life all over the dirt.

The third would never use that arm again, if he was smart enough to retreat quickly.

He wasn't.

The clip slid from the weapon, straight through the wooden boards of the old bridge. It was wide enough for two vehicles to pass alongside each other, with a rusted metal frame. Some of the wood had rotted over the years, but the Dead Horses themselves had replaced a great many of the useless pieces with roughly cut logs. It traded an even surface for a solid one.

The clip barely had time to make a splash in the water before another was in the weapon and expelling its payload.

The Courier appeared from behind cover and let loose a barrage himself, successfully sending one of his heavier rounds through the shoulder of one of the White Legs and effectively removing him from the battle.

"Go. We'll fight this battle," Joshua barked towards the Sorrows. All of them obeyed what was more of a command than an offer, though some less willingly than others, picking their moments to disappear into the green of Zion's wilderness with surprising grace.

"You sure it's wise to just let them go? We could have used the extra people!" the Vagabond cautioned, preferring a larger force to fight off the invaders.

The dry and confident cackle of the Burned Man was terrifying. He moved to the rusted carcass of a car that had stopped working on the road once and never moved again, leaning over the roof and placing the last of his bullets straight through the eye of one of the tribals.

The initial shock of his arrival over, all attention was turned to Joshua Graham, with the storm drums of the White Legs firing furiously down upon his vehicle, with only a few stray rounds being sprayed towards the Vagabond and the scout.

Pale Omen had vanished entirely.

The Courier appeared around the side of the boulder, with Follows-Chalk doing the same around the other side, both firing upon the enemy but having no luck with their assault. While they suppressed the enemies, they didn't manage to strike any of the remaining attackers.

Pausing a moment, the Courier scanned the opposite banks and came to the conclusion that there were still a full twelve attackers, one of whom was wounded but still fighting through the pain.

The scout had reloaded as the Courier ducked back behind the rock, mostly ignored in favour of the ghost taking cover behind the car, and took careful aim with his next shot. What was intended to be a shot through the head did not account for how far the bullet would drop, but instead struck through the neck, instantly erasing the foe anyway.

The attention shifted once more to the other members of the group as the previously nigh-victorious White Legs were pushed back onto the defensive, reacting to attacks on them instead of being the ones to dictate the flow of battle.

Seizing the change in his opponents Joshua moved once again, pulling himself up onto the mangled front of the ancient machine and firing across at the White Legs, murdering two more, before he started walking forward, another clip vanishing through the wood and into the river below before being replaced.

Regrouping, the remaining White Legs attempted to focus their fire on the man standing in the open, defiantly firing upon them as he single-handedly pushed the territory they believed they had taken back again.

One of them might have managed to get a clear shot on the Burned Man, clicking another drum of ammunition into place and grinning violently through teeth stained by human flesh, had it not been for the intervention of a soaking wet former kinsman ramming an enormous praying mantis pincer through his skull with disturbing ferocity.

"I matazen del alvoi taollen!" Pale Omen roared, kicking the torn body away and leaping through the air to shred a former ally's heart to pieces, landing with his entire body weight on his foe, using it to push the sharpened appendage straight through, under the rib cage as Joshua Graham had taught him, completely annihilating one of the body's most vital organs.

The chaos it caused amongst the few remaining White Legs was their death knell. One turned to aim at Pale Omen in blind panic only to be perforated by Joshua Graham's assault.

Another tried to swing his attack onto the advancing phantom, only to have the son of his chief thrust his gauntlet up through his jaw, exploding into the underside of his brain and leaving him a lifeless form hanging limply from the weapon.

Follows-Chalk was already running across the bridge by the time the Courier had steeled himself enough to make the run out of cover, firing a series of blasts through the air at one of the few remaining White Legs, one of his shots cracking a rib while another, just a little above it, opened a lung.

By the time the Courier was across the bridge every single member of the fifteen attackers trying to attack the bridge had been slain, or at least they believed so.

Pale Omen was splattered with blood, proudly grinning as he looked over his gruesome kills and licked flecks of blood from his surprisingly effective weapon.

"Wow," was all the Wanderer could manage. "That was unbelievable."

"That was war," Joshua Graham replied, turning his intense blue eyes towards Courier Six and properly observing him.

He turned and looked at the dead bodies around him, kneeling down and collecting what weapons he could off them. It wasn't a glamorous activity, but one couldn't be picky in days like those. If a dead person had something that could keep you alive then there was little shame in taking it. The dead no longer needed it to help them, and if it could keep another alive even a few moments more then its purpose was better served to the living.

As he reached down to grab one of the automatic weapons, he noted that this particular White Leg sported no wounds.

The reason became apparent when suddenly the gun rose, aimed squarely at his forehead, ready to unload every last round straight through the Courier's head. A saying the Courier was fond of, one of his own, was that if one bullet was not enough the answer was not two, it was all of them. In this case, all of them could have numbered up to fifty, and would have been impossible for any mortal to survive.

Before the trigger could be pulled however someone else did the same, and the snarling tribal's face distorted as Joshua Graham fired a shot straight through his temple, severing the complicated series of nerves that held the eye in place before exploding out his cheek at the other side, leaving a messy exit wound.

His hand spasmed, dropping significantly and twisting to the side, but still pulling the trigger.

A collection of rapid bursts signalled the end of the battle, and the Vagabond's breath was caught in his throat as he waited for the pain to tell him where he'd been struck.

Moments passed, and nothing changed. Letting out a heavy breath, he examined himself. The bullets had torn a few shreds of his coat out, but otherwise he'd survived miraculously unscathed.

"Hoo," Follows-Chalk breathed, eyes wide. Unable to think of anything to follow it up with, he simply ended up echoing himself in amazement. "Hoo…"

The Burned Man moved amongst the men, firing a single round through the forehead of those who weren't noticeably wounded enough for death, and was already turning to cross the bridge the way he had come by the time the Vagabond was aware of his surroundings again.

Pale Omen was at his heels like a faithful dog, and before long Follows-Chalk moved to follow him as well. Looking through the hole in his coat, the Courier sighed in both relief and disappointment. Being alive was by far the winner of the clash, but he still lamented the damage to his coat. Now as well as the dark bloodstain on the collar there was a chunk ripped open by gunfire.

"I know someone who can fix that," the scout offered, gesturing for him to follow the three men.

Preferring not to linger amongst dead men any longer than he needed to, the Courier quickly followed, catching up with the trio and falling into step beside them.

"We should have given you a better welcome on your first visit to Zion, but from what I hear, the White Legs beat us to it," Joshua said, looking across at the Courier he was travelling with. "White Legs seem to be the only visitors we have these days, and I wouldn't have expected anyone from the Mojave to come looking for us."

They cut a strange picture as they walked across the landscape. A man wrapped top to bottom in bandages under a white shirt and a bullet-proof vest, a near-naked tribal with skin glaringly white covered in bloody tattoos and wearing the forearm of a mutated insect, a tanned scout wearing a animal hides and an Old World cap adorned with feathers, and a mail man in a grey duster with a pair of bullet-hole scars on his forehead.

"And you're a courier, no less," the Burned Man observed. "Not the one I was expecting, but I suppose he wouldn't have come with a caravan. I don't know if you were close to the other members of your group, but you have my sympathy."

"Thank you. I'm lucky to be alive right now for so many different reasons," the Courier replied, making a mental note to ask what Joshua meant about the other courier.

"I pray for the safety of all good people who come to Zion, even Gentiles, but we can't expect God to do all the work," the Burned Man replied, further confusing his newest companion.

"You knew when I arrived here, then."

"The Dead Horses are capable scouts. Nothing passes into or out of Zion without my hearing of it," Graham replied, patting Follows-Chalk on the shoulder. While he wasn't a fully fledged scout, the young man was an example of what they could be.

The Courier smiled toward his friend, noticing the pride he swelled with when Joshua praised his ability. "So then perhaps you know why we were here. We were trying to make contact with the New Canaanites," he said. "Not sure if there's still a point in it now though. No caravan no contract, I guess."

Joshua nodded. "Happy Trails. I remember. They were good friends," he recalled. "I have bad news for your employers. New Canaan was destroyed, its citizens scattered. All because of the White Legs. And Caesar, of course."

"I don't understand."

"The White Legs want to join the Legion. Caesar's rite of passage is the destruction of the New Canaanites, almost assuredly because of me."

"Kai-sarrr," Pale Omen growled, one of the few words in the conversation he understood. Unlike other members of the Legion, the Burned Man had never pronounced 'Caesar' in Latin tongue, instead using the newer variation, even in his time as Caesar's right hand.

"The good news is that we can help you find your way back," Joshua offered. "Daniel, one of the other New Canaanites, has made many maps of the region. The bad news is that we can't help you right now. Not with everything that's going on."

The Vagabond laughed. "This huge thing on my arm has the maps already, but don't worry, I'm in no hurry to leave. Seeing all this, I'd rather stay, and if that means defending it is part of the deal, then so be it," he replied, surprising even himself with the conviction he had in defending Zion.

Paradise had an effect on those who experienced it. He'd been gifted a fresh apple, something entire regions of America would go to war over, for little more than being in Zion. It was no easy choice to want to leave, especially with the turbulence and chaos back in his homeland.

"You're a good neighbour to us," the Burned Man said, maybe even smiling beneath the bandages. "We all go through periods of darkness. In such times, we can turn to the Lord, but it's good to have friends."

Follows-Chalk grinned in his direction, and the Courier simply smiled and nodded, not altogether sure of what he'd just been told.

"Daniel and I need Pre-War tools to help us navigate beyond Zion. Should we need to evacuate, these instruments will be vital to us. I don't intent to let it come to that, but it is better to be prepared for the worst than to ignore the possibility," he explained. "Normally, we would have some of the Dead Horses or Sorrows look for them, but many Pre-War buildings in the valley are taboo. They won't go inside."

"Never made much sense to me," Follows-Chalk said. "They're just buildings from Back When."

"No more dangerous than anywhere else around here, it seems," the Courier said, gesturing back towards the bridge. "You need me to hunt down a few items then. I can do that."

"Thank you. Follows-Chalk can help you find your way around the valley," Joshua offered, noting the second swell of pride in the young man. "He's inexperienced, but as you can see he knows enough of our language to ignore the taboos about Pre-War buildings."

"We'll start in the morning then," the Courier decided, looking up as the last of the sun's rays began to fade. "We're not going to find anything in the darkness."

"Fair enough. We'll return to the Dead Horses camp for tonight, and come morning you and Follows-Chalk can begin the search," Joshua said, outlining what little plans the next twenty-four hours contained, at least for the Courier and his friend.

"Alright then," he agreed, keeping stride.

Not long later they had returned to the Dead Horses camp, sitting around one of numerous fires lit along the shores of the Eastern Virgin River.

A curious collection of figures. Sitting around the flames elsewhere were the tanned bodies of the Dead Horses, yet gathered around this one flame were four men of completely separate identities, backgrounds, and faiths.

Pale Omen of the White Legs, chalk-white body adorned with bloody tattoos, unable to understand more than scraps of English, bearing respect only for Joshua Graham.

Follows-Chalk of the Dead Horses, a naïve but eager young man with a thirst to prove himself and a quiet wanderlust.

Joshua Graham of New Canaan, the Burned Man himself, covered head to toe in bandages and watching the world through those radiant blue eyes.

And of course Courier Six of Nowhere, a man without a tribe of his own, without a home or a family or a past. He was merely a cipher, back then. A code through which the Mojave, New California, Arizona, all America and ultimately even he himself could be rewritten.

"So what's the deal with the taboo on Pre-War buildings?" the Courier asked, ripping another piece of gecko off the kebab he'd cooked.

Follows-Chalk looked across at Joshua, who spared a glance down the river. "The Sorrows believe in a spirit that lives in the caves, say the spirit punished them once for trespassing. They put special marks around the cave entrances to keep people out," he explained, pointing across the river to where a cave had been surrounding by the white handprints. "It doesn't work on the White Legs, of course, but the Dead Horses are spooked."

"Silly if you ask me," Follows-Chalk commented, savaging a piece of the Yao Guai another hunter had slain for his tribe.

"Joshua, you know how to play poker?" the Courier wondered, reaching into his pocket.

Taken the night one of the Vegas Lords was slain, the deck was one-of-a-kind, made for the purpose of being an elaborate distraction and drawing the attention away from those who would seek to steal the true prize.

Courier Six still carried that too, the all-important item that had been his death. He still did not have all the answers, but right now they were far away, less important.

"I might be a little rusty, but I've played before," Joshua said, looking at the deck. Like its sister item, the deck was platinum, though in colour instead of material. The case was heavier than simple card, with a design on one side that showed a four-colour deck: clubs were green, diamonds blue, and hearts and spades their traditional red and black respectively. The front showed the silhouette of the Lucky 38 rising high above Vegas, the lights of the city leaving the tower dark and ominous in its shadow.

"What about you, Chalk?" the Courier asked, showing the young scout the deck.

"I've seen these before!" he said happily. "But they don't make any sense to me."

"Well I don't think Pale Omen over there's much for games, so maybe I'll teach you how to play. A good game of poker needs at least three people, but the more the merrier," the Courier said, drawing the cards out.

They were surprisingly well made, possibly even Old World, preserved for centuries. Each suit shone its colours, their shapes vibrant upon the cards. Sapphires for one, rubies another, then emeralds and finally onyx for spades.

He began instructing the young scout in the way the game was played, and to the surprise of all three even Pale Omen decided to try and pay attention, though as soon as Courier Six drew attention to it he realised and promptly withdrew with a grunt of irritation.

Looking up after a short time at the bandaged man watching the two stumble their way through learning and teaching poker, Courier Six remembered something said earlier in the evening.

"You said you were expecting another courier. Who?"

Graham leaned back and sighed, looking up at the stars.

The Wanderer did the same and his jaw dropped. The skies of Zion were clear, no clouds obscuring the sky beyond, no lights of Vegas polluting the atmosphere. What few stars trickled through in the outer reaches of the Mojave were nothing compared to what he saw now.

Glittering dust flowed along the inky blackness, making it shine and shimmer. The eternity in the skies above the land stretched out above Zion, twinkling lights in their millions flowing in rivers of cosmic brilliance. The universe they called it. Vast, mysterious; it was everything and nothing simultaneously, unreachable beauty in the skies aflame.

He was brought back down to the ground by Joshua Graham's reply. "Caesar would never admit this openly, but he knows that I'm alive. I've killed enough of his frumentarii and assassins that have come looking," he explained, his hands clenching into fists as he spoke of killing his pursuers. "I've heard one of them travels the Mojave as a courier. Most of Caesar's agents meet a fitting end in NCR territory, but maybe this one survived."

The chip was in his hand. His eyes were wide. Was he a frumentarius? Did he work for Caesar? Courier Six, a spy?

He changed the subject. Quickly.

"You and Chalk use the same weapon, I notice," he said without any subtlety at all. "None of the other Dead Horses seem to favour guns."

Joshua Graham noted the change, and his eyes narrowed. After a moment he continued speaking, but his eyes stayed on the Courier. "In the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau, all tribes are known for a specific weapon. White Legs are known for their big submachine guns, 'storm drums'. They broke into an armoury near Spanish Fork and have been using them for years. Of course, the Dead Horses have their wooden war clubs and even the Sorrows have their Yao Guai gauntlets," he shared, gesturing to the war club of a passing Dead Horse as he passed.

He drew his own gun and held it into the firelight. Letters in a language the Vagabond did not recognise ran along either side of the barrel. "This type of .45 automatic pistol was designed by one of my tribe almost four hundred years ago. Learning its use is a New Canaanite rite of passage."

The Courier drew his own pistol and held it up to the light as well. "This was something of a family heirloom, just like this duster. Both came to me through my father. Actually… damn it," he growled, pulling the edges that had been torn into during the battle.

"It's important to you," Joshua observed.

"It's one of the only things from my father I still have," the Courier said honestly.

"Perhaps then, if it is no great trouble, you could leave it with one of the Dead Horses. Among them are skilled tailors. It would not be identical, but the stitching is strong," the Burned Man offered.

The Courier thought about it, looking at the old garment. Eventually it would wear away to nothing, but if he could forestall that as best he could, what did he have to lose? "Alright. After I bring back those items I'll hand it over for a fix," he concluded.

He looked back to where Follows-Chalk was studying the cards intently and realised a few more Dead Horses had strayed over to see what the game was about. He continued explaining, placing down the three community cards and then explaining how they factored into NCR Hold'em Poker, before adding two more.

"A game of risk and deception," Joshua observed. "War, on a much smaller scale."

"War's everywhere," the Courier pointed out, though not without disdain. "Great War kills everybody and we're still here warring two hundred years later. Nothing changes."

"Rather cynical of you," Joshua observed.

"Look at the Mojave. As soon as anyone big enough to fill their shoes showed up they were at war over it. I'm not even sure what they're fighting for, it's a desert. Not like they're going to grow crops there," Courier Six sighed.

"I try not to involve myself in matters of the Mojave," the Burned Man replied, "but last I saw it, there was it more than simply a desert untouched by the Great War. There was a nation strong enough to truly challenge Caesar's armies, and a city of the Old World, more than just a skeleton picked clean."

The Dead Horses were silent, listening. Joshua did not speak of the Mojave often.

"It is not so much the place that Caesar wants from the land, but the ideas and concepts he can forge with it. To challenge the NCR, to prove that there is a nation capable of slaying them and then to prove to himself that there is no nation in America strong enough to challenge him."

The idea hung in the air between them. Hoover Dam was just a place – it was the idea seized with it that gave it such weight.

"I hope you don't mind me prying," Courier Six began, leaving the Dead Horses to try and pick up the game on their own. "But how did that happen? The Legion becoming so strong, or even beginning at all?"

Everyone was suddenly quieter as Joshua Graham stayed silent, watching the outsider.

Pale Omen looked around and growled. In a low tone he spoke.

"Demasiappo silence."

Joshua chuckled. "Perhaps you're right, lehrendiz," he replied, looking over at the out-of-place tribal amongst the Dead Horses. "It's not something I enjoy, but I pray to God that someone may learn from my mistakes."

Everyone leaned in expectantly, surprised by the Burned Man's sudden willingness to share his story.

"I was born in Odgen, what people would come to call New Canaan. Things were more peaceful when I was growing up. When I was a young man, I went out into the world to do missionary work as all New Canaanites do," he began, framing his story. "I travelled along the Long 15 and followed 89 south into Arizona. Along the way, I met two men from a group called the Followers of the Apocalypse. Edward Sallow and Bill Calhoun. They came to teach the tribes. Calhoun was a good man… Edward was the one who got us into trouble down the road."

Again, the Followers of the Apocalypse. "He was Caesar?"

"No, not then. Back then he was just Edward. Smart man. Young, but we all were. We thought we could hike into the Grand Canyon and talk to Blackfoots. We even did, and the Blackfoots were friendly enough at first, but eventually… I've thought back to that day so many times… I must have mistranslated. Something must have been mixed up; because the Blackfoots decided we weren't going to leave. The rest is history, assuming Edward hasn't changed it."

"But that doesn't explain how things became… as they are. You were his legate, right?" the Courier pressed, hoping he wasn't pushing too far.

Joshua was in a talkative mood though, it seemed. "This way lies the path to hell," he warned. "Edw- Caesar needed me to translate. Translation became giving orders. Giving orders became leading into battle. Leading in battle became training, punishing, terrorising. A series of small mistakes before a great fall."

It was amazing the way that a man could so distort his ideals and boundaries with a chain of small concessions. Once the line was bent once, it could be bent again. And again. Until it was shifted back entirely, and what once was never to be done is now just another part of life.

Such were the roads walked by many men.

"I stayed in that darkness until after Hoover Dam. After I failed Caesar and he had me burned alive, thrown into the canyon."

"How did you survive, then?" Follows-Chalk wondered, the cards in his hand forgotten entirely as Joshua Graham told his story.

The shining blue eyes of the Burned Man looked at the young scout, solid like stone, yet deep as an ocean. "I survived because the fire inside burned brighter than the fire around me. I fell down into that dark chasm, but the flame burned on and on," he said in the dry, dusty voice of a man who had been through a tremendous amount in a single lifetime. "The next morning, I woke up and crawled out of the northern edge of the Grand Canyon, that cursed place. It took me three months to reach New Canaan. It was as though the prodigal son had returned. They welcome me like I had never left, never done anything to shame them."

Even Pale Omen was hanging on to every word, trying desperately to understand as much as possible. "The fire that had kept me alive was love. Their love. God's love," he sighed, tremendously humbled. "I will never be able to repay the debt I owe them, but I must try."

Again silence fell, but instead of the expectant silence before, now it was reverent and reflective. Each man and woman in the camp quietly reflected upon their own lives; the debts they owed, the times they had fallen or compromised, their victories and losses.

Amongst them was Courier Six, looking down at the card he had yet to deal, lost in the intricacies not of the figure upon it, but of himself.

He reflected on his losses, his victories, his compromises and his debts. Finally, he thought of what his return home might have been like, once he made the journey back from Zion.

Would she greet him the same, having had time to realise what he had become?


	22. Wild Card: The Ranger's Plan

__Now for the opposite side of the scale to the newcomer Silvius, a look in on how the NCR does things. With this one I wanted to embody something a little more... modern, I suppose. The NCR seems almost caricature in its 'founded on the old America' philosophy sometimes, and I wanted to bring a little of that in with this character, playing it with a more action hero approach.

Some of you might like it, some of you might prefer Silvius or Courier Six. That's plenty fine, but hopefully you at least enjoy seeing the story unfold through the eyes of the second wild card:

* * *

><p><em><strong>Wild Card<strong>_

_**The Ranger's Plan**_

_Date: 11-16-81_

"Get your ass moving, Cassidy!"

"Fuck you Morgan, I'm moving as fast as I can!"

"Not fast enough!"

"I said fuck you!"

The fires burned brighter on the southeast watchtower, but the 'guards' had since figured out that it was only a distraction, and now they were making a mad dash for the nearest building – Cell Block A.

The door cracked as the Ranger kicked it open and dashed through, spraying bullets across the room and sending three convicts into the wall. One wasn't getting back up, but two more went for their guns. He focused on the one closest to getting a shot off, his face deteriorating into chunks of flesh as the machine gun tore him apart.

The other was trying to reach a pistol. Cassidy arrived on the scene and blasted him with her shotgun.

"God, you're bad at this," Ranger Richard Morgan sighed, dropping one magazine to swap in another.

"How many times do I have to tell you to go fuck yourself?" the caravan merchant travelling with him wondered. Rose of Sharon Cassidy was her full name; an odd moniker that she claimed had been inspired by an Old World novel about dirt farmers.

She was a mean drunk and until recently the proud owner of Cassidy Caravans.

The sounds of scuffling and something being knocked over alerted them both to more hostiles in the building.

Morgan pointed to the left wall, while he himself took the right. The cell block was a long building, only a single floor, with cells that had since been converted into something more akin to bedrooms after the prisoners took over. Now they were hiding in there.

The Ranger shuffled close to the doorway of one, took a deep breath and then rounded the corner, spraying bullets throughout the room.

Empty.

Next room.

Against the wall. Check ammo. Deep breath.

Fire!

This time he struck a Ganger, scaring them back into the cover of the table they'd knocked over before two hands appeared over the top firing indiscriminately.

Morgan was back taking cover in the doorway again, heaving a deep breath. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to gunfights. Training had been intense, but he'd never been at risk of death. The difference in pressure was more than considerable.

Cass took a shot at someone in one of the other rooms, and then pumped an extra for good measure. Her caravan raided and left for dead, Cass had been stranded at the Mojave Outpost, on the border of the New California Republic, for weeks as the red tape and bureaucracy continued to label her a caravan even when she was clearly just one lone wanderer.

A stick of dynamite went whizzing past him, and Morgan's eyes widened.

"CASSIDY!" he roared, and she saw it too.

The Ranger dove into the first room he'd checked for cover, but the ex-caravan owner was smart. She grabbed it and hurled it back into the room as the fuse burned down to its base.

The explosion shook the building, ripping a hole in the wall and throwing the powder gangers up against the wall like ragdolls, the physics shattering bones and leaving them completely unable to continue fighting.

"What's the matter, Morgan, scared of a little explosive?" she yelled over the ringing.

"Go fuck yourself, Cassidy!" the Ranger yelled back, digging a finger into his ear and wincing. He pulled up his gun and sent a Ganger running back into his room as he emerged, attempting to take advantage of the bedlam.

Eventually, after weeks of depressed drinking, a courier had arrived and offered her an impressive amount of money in exchange for the rights to her caravan. At first she'd stubbornly resisted, clinging to whatever pride she thought she still had in her merchant business. Morgan had deconstructed it and pointed out how much of a bull-headed idiot she was being. 'Bull-headed' had been the exact term he'd used in fact, just to remind her of her little outburst the night another courier had passed through.

Somehow Cassidy had managed to stash multiple bottles of alcohol on her person. Another bottle of whiskey appeared and went straight to her lips, a long and impressive draught before she corked it and then stowed it away again.

The woman wore jeans, a plaid shirt and a tight-fitting jacket for chrissakes, where the hell was she getting all this alcohol?

Morgan moved closer to the next door, gritting his teeth. He peeked around the door this time, checking before he wasted more ammunition. He didn't have an infinite supply.

Another empty one. That left the one in front of him, where he knew at least one was hiding, and the one behind it.

He didn't bother peeking around the corner for this one. Instead it was just another spray of bullets in an attempt to down the man in the next room.

"NCR scum!" the man roared, charging through the door with the metal leg of a chair in one hand and the other covered in blood where two bullets had ripped into him.

One of his superiors had shown him this situation several times and then gone on to show him how best to deal with it.

His left hand slipped up to the combat knife sheathed just behind his shoulder and in one smooth motion he drew it and slashed across the convict's face, aiming for his throat. The effect wasn't quite what he was hoping for, but it did the job he needed it to; the man screamed and fell back, leaving Morgan with enough breathing room to fire at him.

After moping for a little while, the Ranger had approached her and asked if she'd consider going to Vegas. Much as they bickered, he and Cass had some kind of extremely antagonistic friendship blossoming, and the Ranger wanted someone other than soldiers to head up the Long 15 with – his orders had come in. Camp McCarran, the heart of NCR's New Vegas operation. Urban warfare and civilian patrol with the chance of off-days in Vegas.

It was a good assignment, everything considered. He could have just been thrown out to one of the ranger outposts and forgotten about like others, but apparently he'd managed to get himself a spot at swimming in the big pond.

God, he missed ponds…

He'd actually had a chance to swim in one, once. Back when he was just a little kid, before the lakes dried up in California. It felt so strange.

Then he'd seen the ocean, grey and murky, and he'd been too scared to go near a body of water again. Then they'd vanished, and he'd really missed them in his more confident teenage years.

Lake Mead supposedly had water though. Clean water, water you could even drink. It sounded impossible.

He approached the last door, looking over at Cass who was one step behind him. This one was closed, but that didn't mean there was nobody inside.

Pointing his gun around the corner first the Ranger's head shot out of cover for a look before retreating again and firing.

Someone lying on the bed, presumably hoping to escape the conflict.

Not after what the convicts here had done.

Checking again, he made sure the form was definitely dead, then turned back to see Cass checking one last empty room herself, then looking at him and raising a thumb in the universal sign for 'good'.

"I have to hand it to you, Morgan. You're terrible at this suicide thing," Cassidy said with a sarcastic smile.

The Ranger reloaded. "Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet," he said, the two-man (Cass would probably have taken offence to calling it that) assault on the first barracks had been so successful he was starting to get cocky. It was all starting to feel like something out of a holovid.

The look she gave him was a mix of disgust and amusement, before the building shook and someone outside yelled something neither could understand.

It was enough to prompt both to move for the door. As Cassidy reached for the door knob though Morgan grabbed her arm.

"We could walk right into the line of fire. Stay low, and don't stand directly in front when the door opens. Take cover that side, I'll take this one," he instructed.

For a brief moment his female companion wanted to argue simply on the basis that it was what she always did, but the rational half of her brain was in control today, partly thanks to a general lack of whiskey between the Mojave Outpost and Sloan, which was still up the road. She'd hoped to restock in Primm, but they were recovering from being hard hit by convicts who'd made a point of consuming all the drink in town save a few bottles, which Sheriff Meyers was keeping out of most people's hands.

She didn't react well to being sober, but it was hard to argue the so-called 'benefits' of less intoxication. She didn't approve of the whole thing any more for it, though.

The Ranger stood in front of the door, clicked it open just enough so that it wouldn't catch and close again when he let go, and peered out.

Not entirely over his victory yet, he decided against the more tactical plan, grabbed his gun tightly, and gave the door a solid kick.

It swung outwards and immediately Morgan caught a glimpse of the small skirmish outside in the afternoon sunlight. His team had taken two of the six towers, and they'd pushed the powder gangers back to the west side of the prison facility; the administration building and the warden's office on the floor above it.

The edge of cell block A was scorched, with a chunk torn out of it. They were called powder gangers for a reason, after all, and the admin building was where their primary stash must have been set up.

It didn't take long for that to turn into an idea.

"You know for a second I thought you might actually be a ranger because you weren't just some cowboy asshole," Cass sighed as the force of Morgan's kick brought the door right back to closed.

"Oh yeah? Would a cowboy blow the building up?" he said, turning away and going back to search the dead convicts for dynamite.

"Yes. That's exactly what a cowboy would do. In fact that's exactly what would happen in _every _action movie," she said snidely, watching him go.

"Help me find more explosives," the ranger threw back, ignoring the fact that yes, watching too many movies as a child was the exact reason his first instinct was to blow the building up.

Muttering things no polite woman would dream of saying, Cassidy did as the Ranger asked, moving between bodies and patting them down for explosives. "So how far does this plan actually extend, Morgan? 'Walk in, drop dynamite, light fuse, run away'? You know blowing up a building is more complicated than just 'lots of explosives, big boom', right?"

He didn't stop to tell her she was correct, he just shoved a small collection of dynamite sticks into her hands. "Since you're the one who knows so much, you can be the one to set it up. I'll run distraction and go for their boss upstairs," the Ranger explained, checking his revolver and firing a round to make sure it wasn't jammed.

It was.

Growling and fidgeting, he eventually resorted to smacking it against the concrete wall. It clicked, and he concluded it was either broken or fixed. Pulling the trigger, he was pleased to find that the answer was the fatal one.

The two looked at each other.

"I hate you," Cassidy sighed, looking at the armful of dynamite she was supposedly escorting.

Richard pulled his radio from his belt and flicked it back on. "This is Morgan, the barracks are clear and we have a plan of attack," he said into it.

For a few moments there was silence, and then the radio burst static. "Morgan? About time you contacted. We saw the door open. The hell are you up to down there?" came the voice on the other end.

"Cleaning up. Plenty of gangers here, but we took care of 'im," the Ranger reported.

"So what's this plan of attack you have?" the radio asked.

Taking a deep breath, Ranger Richard Morgan explained his plan. With a few modifications so that the other soldiers would not consider it too much. "I need you to cover me and Cassidy while we go for the door to the administration building. We're going to use their own weaponry against them and flush them out into the courtyard with some well placed bangs. Clean-up goes to you," he said, falling silent and waiting for a reply.

For a few moments both could tell that the soldiers in one tower were debating whether or not it would work, and then relaying the message to the soldiers in the other.

"You do know how suicidal this all sounds, Morgan?" the radio eventually asked.

"Who dares wins, Doren," the Ranger said, recalling the old military saying that the New California Republic still enjoyed using today.

"I'm not dragging your body back when you get yourself killed, ranger," the soldier on the other end, Doren, warned.

"I'll try not to die then," the Ranger said smartly and flicked his radio back off, slotting it back onto his belt.

"The plan you just came up with was better than the plan you were trying to cover," Cassidy said. "_And _it had the exact same possibility of detonating whatever stockpile they might have. How the hell did you become a ranger?"

"It involved being exceptionally skilled and extremely awesome," Morgan said without hesitation. "Coming?"

"Fuck you, Dick."

"Love you too, Cassidy."

He kicked the door in again, and this time followed by running, automatic in hand, across the prison yard.

Much to her own sober fury, Rose of Sharon Cassidy followed.

From the upper window he saw one of the gangers catch sight of him and turn to call towards one of his comrades, only to wind up with a bullet through his head.

Doren was first recon, NCR's best snipers. 'The last thing you never see' they liked to say about themselves, and he couldn't fault them for being cocky after they were one half of a joint effort that won Hoover Dam.

The story went that after Caesar's Legion overran the Dam the military was pushed back and everything seemed lost.

Chief Hanlon, leader of the NCR Rangers, organised an ambush to stop the advancing army and keep the Legion east of the Colorado River. The first recon had been instrumental; they peppered the Legion ranks from Boulder City, coaxing them to push their victory.

It had worked too. Their military leader, one Joshua Graham from up Utah way of all places to come from, had taken the best of his troops and charged for Boulder City without a second thought, intending to slaughter the first recon.

The man was notorious for surviving situations he couldn't – the first recon had reported successfully assassinating him _five times_. Within twenty-four hours of each instance the man had been on the field leading troops.

Nobody had any idea how he pulled it off, but it didn't matter much after Boulder City. They charged right into town and the rangers jumped on them, attacking from every side. The skirmish was bloody, and would have been a great blow to Caesar. But Joshua was still winning. They were losing more men than they were killing.

Hanlon made the hard decision. Charges all over town. As many explosives as they could get in and set up before everything went haywire. Rangers and first recon died that day, but so did a massive chunk of the Legion's top men and military leaders.

The blow to morale had been enough for the rest of the rangers to rejoin and rally the military and push the monsters back across the river. Joshua Graham, still somehow alive, limped home, got set on fire and thrown down a hole. That shut him up.

The battle of the New California Correctional Facility would probably not be remembered as well as the battle of Hoover Dam though, even if it was going to end with a big explosion.

Shoulder charging through the door, Morgan took the men by surprise and emptied his entire magazine with extreme prejudice, taking out two men and injuring three more. Of them, two were still able to fire their weapons.

He dropped the machine gun and went for the revolver, firing two rounds into each of the remaining combatants before they could recover, heaving a deep sigh as he realised just how badly that could have gone wrong, slipping down behind the reception desk he reloaded his handgun and dragged the automatic weapon over. He only had two magazines left for it.

Cass flew through the doorway, spotted him, and slipped down behind the desk beside him. Her jacket was considerably more padded now that she'd stuffed it with dynamite. It looked bullet-proof, but testing that theory would be more than a little lethal.

"Alright, remember the plan? Most if not all are on the upper floors. You need to head down to the sub-level-" Richard began.

"Call a stick a stick, Morgan. It's a fucking basement."

"-you need to head down to the _basement_ and set up as much of that as you can, and then use their own stash. I don't know as much about dynamite as you, but I suggest a long fuse," the Ranger concluded.

Cassidy shook her head and glared at him. "Why am I still doing this?" she wondered.

"You talk tough, but I can feel all the sexual tension Cassidy, and it's okay, after today I'm not gonna mind if you sneak over to my bedroll," the Ranger said with a smarmy grin.

Her eyes were moments away from discovering an ability to shoot lasers when Morgan jumped over the desk, gun in hand, and made for the stairs.

Leaving her to grouch in the relative peace of a convict-owned basement explosives stockpile, the Ranger ascended the first staircase slowly, keeping his eyes open and focused on the landing.

When he reached it he spun quickly and pointed up the next staircase. The powder gangers had made a barrier out of a couple of tables and a few chairs stacked on top of each other, over which one was peering.

Morgan let loose a cautious spray of fire before the convict could do the same, pushing him back behind the table and giving him a chance to take cover at the top of the staircase he'd just come up.

"Fucking NCR scum!" the man yelled down at him. "We don't like your kind round here!"

"You're from the NCR you criminal prick!" Morgan called back up; prompting an angry burst of gunfire along the dividing wall he was hiding behind.

"How many?" he heard another man ask.

"Just one I can see," the one manning the blockade replied.

There was a brief silence, broken finally when one of the other gangers decided to try firing at the tower. The exchange lasted a few seconds, with neither accomplishing anything.

"They send the fucking Courier in after us or something?" the second man grumbled.

The stories of the Drifter had travelled north then.

"Hey, I know that Courier!" Morgan yelled. He was only running distraction, no need to try and take them all out.

"Fuck-a-doodle-doo!" the second powder ganger shouted down. "You know a mail man; shall I give you a medal? You soldier boys love shoving those where the sun don't shine!"

"No need to be so hostile!" Morgan replied. "Just making conversation!"

"Piss off!"

At this point negotiation tactics might have been worth employing instead of pure antagonism, but Morgan didn't much care for that kind of approach, and even if they'd accept a deal, Cassidy was already busy setting things up downstairs.

So instead, why not learn a little from dead men. "So how do you know about the Courier? Heard the story about Primm from one of your buddies?"

There was silence, before he heard a lighter flick open. He moved down the stairs as the hissing of the dynamite fuse got closer, passing by him as it rolled down the stairs and exploded, tearing a chunk out of the side of the wall.

He took a deep breath and stayed quiet. As far as they knew one man had broken in and tried to get upstairs, and now he'd failed.

"Talking about the goddamned Courier," the convict upstairs growled.

"Who's the Courier?" another one asked.

"Some psychopath from a while back. Know those guys that escaped a year ago? Those guys ran into him out in a pass east of Primm. Killed 'em all, 'cept one guy who got away while he was fighting a Deathclaw."

Someone laughed.

"You're saying this guy was fighting a Deathclaw. Bullshit."

"It's true. Johnny said so."

"Oh yeah? Well Johnny's always telling tall tales. Probably makes it sound better than 'I begged for my life and he took pity on my after I shat myself!' Know what I mean?"

"That's disgusting, Gus. Have a little class." This voice was smoother than the others, a little more refined.

"Sorry, Roger."

The Courier, fight a Deathclaw? Yeah right. Must have been a different one.

"Morgan!" Cassidy yelled. "Time to leave!"

"Hey, someone's still down there!" Gus exclaimed.

"Go and fucking get them!" said a high-pitched man. "All of you! Fuck this sniper shit, go and fucking kill those fucking bastards downstairs!"

Definitely time to leave, Morgan concluded, barrelling down the stairs to find Cass. "How long have we got?"

"About thirty seconds," Cassidy replied, already on her way out the door.

The radio was on. "Doren, we're coming out, hold your fire," he commanded.

"I told you it wasn't gonna work, Richard," the sniper on the other end commented exasperatedly.

Morgan was grinning from ear to ear. "No, no it worked."

"You'd be surprised how much they had down there," Cassidy said quickly. "They must have been shaking down travellers and making deals from all over, because they actually had entire blocks of C4."

"C4? Morgan, what the-no. You didn't," Doren said flatly.

They ran out, into what was slowly turning from afternoon into evening and made a mad dash for cell block A, Morgan wrenching the door open and slipping inside with his female ally close on his heels.

"Doren, get down," he said as Cassidy closed the door and both went for one of the cells on the side away from the administration building.

"I am going to kill you myself, Morgan!" Doren said furiously. "Do you have any idea what kind of shit is going to come falling on our heads after this!"

"Hopefully none of it debris."

"I fucking hate you," Cassidy sighed.

Outside, Gus had just stepped outside. Roger, cautious as always, had slipped downstairs. No sniper round struck Gus. Maybe the NCR was actually retreating?

Roger pushed open the door to the storage basement, his eyes widening as he heard the familiar hissing. It was like something out of a cartoon, the fuse just reaching its destination as he arrived, giving him nothing more than one brief moment of realisation.

He turned to leave the room once more, and the entire stockpile went off.

The central foundations were obliterated, the outer ones cracked and weakened. The first floor exploded up into the second, sending gangers on each floor first upwards, then back down into the colossal fireball that the basement had become. The ones knocked unconscious by the initial impact were by far the luckiest of the bunch.

The third floor shook, heard the explosions, the screams, and had six point eight seconds of horror before the floor creaked and the structure collapsed inwards, the sudden lack of most of the building's support leaving the top floor nothing to hold itself up. The floor collapsed in the middle, sending a few down into the flames and giving the remaining just a second more before the walls came in on them and the entire structure gave in, dying with one enormous groan.

Bureaucracy be damned. Months of red tape and political 'uhm'ing and 'ahh'ing resolved by two grunts, one sniper, one ranger, one drunken bitch, and the enemy's own weaponry.

"NCR. Fuck yeah," Morgan breathed.

"By the way," Cassidy said from where she'd landed, half on a bed. "Have I mentioned today just how much I hate you?"


	23. We Were Like Men Who Dreamed

Alrighty, back to Courier Six and his shenanigans in Zion!

* * *

><p><strong><em>We Were Like Men Who Dreamed<em>**

_Date of Log: 20th November, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: 03-23-74_

"So tell me. What made you decide you could come along and just sign up to be one of us, huh?"

Big guy, he was. Not Chance, dark-skinned, big scars down one arm. Looked like he'd arm wrestled a Deathclaw one day and won. Hell, maybe he did, everyone seemed to be pretty wary of him. No hair, and the tattered shreds of a bulletproof vest over his shoulders was all he cared to wear over his enormous torso. The lower half was just as ragged, though thankfully it was the bottom of his jeans that were filled with holes and eventually ended in ripped shreds instead of the tops, which he'd kept clean. He wore chunky boots stolen from a military outpost on one of his many raids, one of which had duct tape wrapped around the toe where a machine gun had destroyed three of his toes.

If I'd read through a few more Old World comics I probably would have laughed when I found the hero he'd modelled himself on, but right then I was busy trying not to let him intimidate me. It was partially succeeding, I think.

"To fuck up the NCR as much as I possibly can," I spat in reply.

"Half the fucking recruits we get these days are just here to do that. What's the matter, kid? Those big bad NCR soldiers say you weren't allowed to shoot up anymore so your psycho-addled brain decided you'd get back at them by going and joining the big bad Khans, demons come from the same lands as the NCR, huh? Figured you, with your magnitude of information, could help us in some way, that it? 'Oooh, I've got big info, Mr. Stone! One of the soldiers who took my dolls has allergies to peanuts! Let's poison him and then watch as the NCR crumbles without him!' That about sum it up?"

He enjoyed doing this to new recruits. I could see in his eyes how much fun he had with it.

"They planted their flag in my home, they're blackhearted scum, and they're slowly destroying the land I love. I want them to burn in a fire so hot that even when they're dead they're still screaming in agony. Every last one of those militaristic assholes."

"You talk tough for a child," the big man laughed. "Alright, let's see if you're up to the challenge."

I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head. The enormous man, who gave himself no name but Stone and was called that because of it, grinned with a sadistic joy I knew meant something very bad for me.

The Khan initiation ritual is a brutal and painful thing - it's literally an experience in having the crap kicked out of you.

I was led into the fighter's ring, ready to have to fight my way into their ranks. I wasn't very good with my hands or even just a stick, but I knew I was better than some of these hippies.

Then instead of a weapon, Stone gives me a smack in the back of the head. "That's one. Let's see how many you get before you pass out, shall we?" he said.

Someone else had jumped into the ring. A scrawny looking guy, probably fresh out of initiation himself and eager to be part of the crowd on top this time. Can't say I blame him. Much.

...okay, I still wish I could have broken his nose and at least two fingers, but he's probably dead now anyway, so I can, in some weird, morbid way, be at peace with that.

A third person joined in, this one a woman. I was kneeling from a blow to the stomach and she decided to take a kick at my legs right as Stone delivered one into my back. Straight to the ground with me, and I stayed there for the rest of 'initiation'.

Managed to get a look up a few times. Spotted a huge man with long blonde hair once. He punched me right in the forehead. That was my first meeting with Chance.

Eventually they backed off, and through the ringing in my ears and the blood that had made its way into my eye I could see Stone looking at me and grinning like a lunatic. I don't remember what happened to him, but I don't think I mourned when it did. Bastard was way too happy to batter his own allies into nothing. Then again, a man who was willing to do that to allies must have been truly terrifying when it came to dealing with his enemies.

Hah, sounds a bit like that Joshua Graham guy Jed's been talking about. Legion loves doing awful things to their allies and even more horrifying things to their enemies.

But finally the dust had cleared and I was alive, and conscious.

"Well, well... looks like we might have a use for you after all, little man," Stone said with a mixture of contempt and respect.

Swaying, I pushed one leg underneath myself and tried to stand. The first time failed, and I merely dropped back onto my knees grunting as they protested. Someone had dealt a painful blow to my leg, one I knew I was going to feel for days. I did, too, as I recall. Limped for a week. Didn't complain though. Two days later a guy tried to join and ended up with a broken rib and one of his eyes being damaged to the point where he couldn't see out of it.

I liked Patchy. Good guy. A bit of a junkie, but Jack and Diane did their best to make junkies out of all of us.

"Welcome to the Khans. Whenever you think you can walk, head on over to Papa Khan's longhouse and we'll see about giving you a bed. I give you until tomorrow morning to move, and if you haven't by then I'm rolling you down Cazador Canyon and writing you off as a goner, got it?" Stone said.

I made to speak, and succeeded only in spitting blood on the ground. Stone chuckled and walked off, leaving me to it.

Must have been a good hour I sat there wondering if I'd ever move again. Confirmed it by putting one leg up and getting myself from sitting on my knees to kneeling.

When I finally tried again I got all the way to my feet before swaying violently.

"Shit," I grunted, tilting forwards and pulling myself back without any coordination at all, my feet stumbling and failing to keep me upright. I slammed into the dirt again and lay spread out staring at the blue sky.

I was a Great Khan, but I felt like road kill.

Finally a face appeared over me looking sardonic. A hand appeared, offered in the direction of mine.

"You took that pretty well."

"Really? I think I'm bleeding out of every limb I own. And a few I didn't even know I owned."

"You're alive aren't you? Not everyone is that lucky."

"This is lucky?"

I strained my arm, reaching up and grasping hers. She was unfocused at first, but as she helped me up - third times a charm - her features became more defined. Immediately I noticed the huge double mohawk she sported.

"My name's Alyssa," she said, slipping an arm under my shoulder to keep me up.

Together we started to hobble through Red Rock Canyon.

"Hi Alyssa," I replied. Did I give her my name?

Damn, I don't remember.

_~ 2247 ~_

_After being captured by the Blackfoot tribe, one of the Followers uses his knowledge to teach the tribe of warfare, and is named their leader. He assumes the name and title of 'Caesar'._

They were too small to be adults. Shattered and broken, lying helpless for years in that canyon. The bridge must have collapsed, or a rockslide sent them tumbling from the road.

An entire busload of children. The lunch boxes and tattered rags seemed to indicate they were some kind of small organisation. A youth brigade of some sort.

Two centuries on, and who were they now? Was there a shred of evidence anywhere in the world that they had ever been something other than pitifully small skeletons, melancholy reminders of the evils of the Old World?

A scorched photograph depicting a birthday, perhaps? A warped recording of their first words, or a proud moment in their brief lifetimes?

The Courier comprehended the situation, and as he stood in the ruined and torn open bus at the bottom of the ravine, his eyes painfully sweeping across them for signs of one of the items Joshua had requested he take to this 'Daniel', he was unable to take his mind off of where he was, and what the forms around him were.

Follows-Chalk was at the water's edge, keeping a look out for anything that might have interrupted the search.

Finally, after finally pushing himself to check more thoroughly, he located a broken compass.

Sighing with frustration, he picked the object up and examined it. Aside from the glass being cracked, a number of little things were wrong within it.

"Courier, how long are you going to look?" Follows-Chalk finally asked across the stream.

A hand wrapped around the torn edge of the bus and the Courier appeared behind it a moment later, stepping back into the river and wading to shore.

"Found it," he confirmed, holding the item up and showing it to Follows-Chalk. One working compass, fixed after some tinkering and a little duct tape.

"Hoi," Chalk replied happily, looking uneasily over at the school bus and enjoying that he did not have to go in.

"So what was the other thing?" the Courier asked, putting as much distance between the travelling duo and the school bus as he could.

"Uhh… walk-ee talk-ee. Two of it," Follows-Chalk replied, unsure of what the item on the list referred to.

The Courier chuckled. "Two-way radios, as they're more commonly known. I think you'll like them," he said, making his way up the hill and meeting the road.

"What are they?" the young man wondered.

"You'll see," his elder said with a smile.

The sky groaned suddenly, thick clouds foaming in the atmosphere.

Follows-Chalk looked about quickly, but the Courier had already dropped low, his gun in hand. "The hell? Sounded like artillery. There's no way some tribals could have something like that," he growled.

It took a moment for the scout to realise what his friend was saying, before he began to laugh.

"Chalk, this is serious, we need to find out where that's coming from," the Courier warned, his eyes darting about the walls of the canyon.

"Courier, have you never heard thunder before?" the scout wondered.

Realising that Follows-Chalk knew something he didn't, the Courier stopped and looked at him. "Thunder? Yeah, gunfire, artillery, explosions. Of course I've heard thunder; I've spent a long time in the Mojave."

Shaking his head, the tanned young tribal continued to laugh. "Thunder is the sky, Courier. Joshua says it is a sign of rain coming, that it's the sound of… something in the clouds, he said. It does something, and makes a loud noise because of it. He made it sound so complicated," Chalk tried to explain, finding it difficult to properly elaborate just what the Burned Man had explained, let alone remember it.

"Sounds like more of his spiritualism talk," the Courier replied nonchalantly. "I have to admit, the picture I had in my head wasn't quite what I was talking to last night."

"Joshua surprises many people," the scout agreed, pulling himself up onto a rock and scanning a narrow passage between two cliffs.

The Courier looked up into the overcast skies. "The stories make him sound like a monster. I mean, when he was fighting, sure, he was skilled, but I expected the whole teeth and claws affair, y'know?"

"No, I don't," Follows-Chalk admitted.

"Joshua Graham is a legend elsewhere in the world," the Wanderer explained. "A warlord known for being brutal and almost invincible. After he was thrown into the Grand Canyon and, evidently, crawled out again, people started thinking he was something crazy like vengeance incarnate. Some kind of wraith that stalked the land eating people's souls. I may be embellishing, though."

Chalk remained silent, making his way up a ridge and motioning for the Courier to hurry up.

"I know what happened has left him… different. But… well, he wasn't what I expected."

The young scout paused in thought, his eyes rolling over the far hills in contemplation. "When Joshua first came to us he was servant to the man he called Caesar. He led his master's armies, and we were ready to follow him into war. When the Enseeyar broke him, he was a changed man. His experiences didn't make him angry, they made him humble. It is not vengeance that drives him now, but repentance."

The Courier nodded. "I understand, I think. I just don't see how anyone could just leave all that behind, even if they were thrown out. Nobody telling those stories thinks he has," he commented, thinking back to the late Jed Masterson, and sighing as the ambush returned to his mind.

"I do not know what goes on in Joshua's head sometimes, but he is a good man. He led us away from Caesar, led us to our own destiny in Zion. He showed us how Caesar would have destroyed us," the young scout said.

"What was he like before all that?" the Courier asked, out of the blue.

The small lodge they were seeking was in sight now, over another hill.

"I only remember a little – I was very young. He was… different. Prouder, yes, but harder, crueller, more driven. Really, I was terrified of him. We all were."

"I'd believe that."

"When he came back, I almost didn't believe he was the same man. He wanted to protect, not destroy."

"A man must only fight to protect something, otherwise he will fight to destroy," the Courier sighed, pausing mid-step and realising someone long ago had imparted that quote upon him.

The young scout nodded, and the two fell into silence, each contemplating their own lives.

Zion seemed so peaceful now, the trees rustling gently, bugs flitting through the air, the river not far away with water flowing over stones that might have been thousands of years old.

Yet at any moment they could have heard gunfire, or an explosion, and the innocence of the moment would be shattered just like it was a million times before.

The Mojave had its moments of peaceful still, but it was never so pure as Zion. I should know, having travelled both. What Zion had could never be recaptured once lost. A peace and tranquillity. An unspoiled wonder, and when silence fell and only nature hid in the dark places, it was difficult to keep from weeping, knowing the destruction of the lands beyond it.

The dry expanse of Nevada was home to silence, but not tranquillity. The Mojave knew quiet tension, the calm before the storm and the requiem of aftermath. Peace in that place... is a dream that cannot be reached. Not true peace. Wars may end; armies may put down their swords and guns. Couriers may rest for a time.

But peace will never soothe the Mojave's soul. Too much blood.

I digress.

They made their way up to the place, an old fishing lodge for people to come and spend a relaxing time catching food that they might not have even eaten. Such things were partaken for leisure and sport in the Time Before; food was in such abundance that hunting for it was no longer needed.

Approaching the door, the Courier noted the white handprints upon it. 'The Sorrows' put them there, so Joshua and Chalk both had claimed. He had yet to encounter them proper yet, only the brief scene at the bridge had identified them any, and that was a thin picture of little more than tribals who could not hold their own in battle. Hardly impressive figures on the battlefield by any margin.

He pushed against the door, and it creaked inwards.

Immediately he heard the chatter of insects inside.

Follows-Chalk saw the Courier slip the machete from his belt into his hand, moving it through the gap he'd created in the door.

His own weapon, a club adorned with shell casings, was in his hand as he moved forward to follow inside.

Thunder roared across the sky again and the clouds darkened even further. Still not used to the sound, the Wanderer jumped, stumbling inside and knocking the door wide open.

It swung in and cracked against an ancient wooden basket used to store some form of handheld device, sending it tumbling to the floor.

The common mantis alone is typically non-threatening. A swift kick is usually all it takes to shatter their fragile skeletal structure and earn oneself a reprieve from their assaults, and that's something even children can do.

In numbers though, they can overwhelm. Young ones, let it serve as a warning. When one mantis is about be on the lookout for more, and if it begins to act aggressive, deal with it quickly or it'll be all too happy to call for its friends.

The Courier and the scout were more than an even match for the small insects though, even in the numbers they'd acquired in the years since claiming the old lodge for their own.

They swarmed from the darkened corners, behind the counter, a cluster coming from the small dining area where the remains of luxurious seats of the Time Before stood quietly. More could be heard trying to scratch their way through a closed door at the other end.

A swift blow from the machete felled the first, then a second slash beheaded another. Two made to slice at Courier Six. One succeeded, slashing its forelegs against his pants, while the other had its head promptly shattered by Follows-Chalk's war club as the scout joined the melee.

The scratch was only slight, nothing the Drifter couldn't easily shrug off – and that's exactly what he did, bringing his weapon down upon another of the creatures and then kicking forwards with his boot to take out another.

Follows-Chalk swung over the counter of the lodge, bringing two down as they jumped up on it to leap at the trespassers, sending them to the ground with wet crunches.

The old door splintered as the creature on the other side rammed it, and two more of the fragile creatures skittered through a hole in the wall a few feet away from the door. Whatever was trying to get through was too big to get through the hole, which made it larger than the average mantis.

Neither of the new additions to the fight lasted long; each of the two combatants dealt with one each, leaving a moment of silence punctuated by the sounds of the last mantis trying to claw its way through the door.

"Right, radio," the Courier said, keeping the machete in hand and a wary eye on the door as he jumped over the counter and slipped on something I won't care to imagine on the other side.

"Courier!" the scout exclaimed in surprise, leaning over the counter and checking on his friend, who had made the most of the situation by checking the shelves underneath the counter. An ancient, long-unusable shotgun had been sitting there, and while together it was useless, the keen eye of the Wanderer had spotted that it still had some merit in the pieces after a proper dismantling.

In addition he located a bottle of sunset sarsaparilla, still full of the strange tasting liquid, with a second beside it, this one empty with its bottle cap sitting beside it. The curious thing had a bright blue star on the underside.

Curious, the Courier took the bottle cap. In some 'civilised' lands bottle caps are considered money, though many nations are trying to phase it out in favour of something more personalised to them. Something they can mass produce so that they can guarantee they're the ones with the most money.

That's something quite different between you here among the Dead Horses and the lands of the so-called 'civilisations'. Time may have changed you from what you were back then, but your desire for material items has not become like theirs.

That was the NCR as I saw it then. A land of people who worshipped no 'Father in the Caves', nor any deity brought to them by the Burned Man. They worshipped currency. They worshipped wealth – the life force of economy, the religion of the dollar.

Were they right to worship it so?

Our story is not about the rights and wrongs of the Nevada Wars. I leave that to other men and women to discuss and tell the tales of.

I must apologise. I have a habit of trickling away on a tangent, don't I? Slipping from my story to explain aspects of people and lands many of you will never encounter.

Bear with me though, if you will. I still intend to tell my story – _our _story – even with my occasional interruptions.

The sarsaparilla appeared on the counter, shortly followed by the rest of Courier Six, complete with smiling face.

"Ever tasted one of these, Chalk?" he wondered, leaving it in front of the scout as he dived back down to collect the old shotgun and whatever else he could scrounge.

"Why would I? This water looks disgusting," he pointed out.

Courier Six chuckled. "That's because it's not water," he pointed out. "Try some, tastes nice. Not as nice as nuka, I'll admit, but nice all the same."

Cautious, but trusting his ally enough to give it a try, Follows-Chalk pulled the cap off, setting it down on the table as he tilted the bottle back and let it flow into his mouth.

The bubbly, fizzing taste assaulted his mouth, followed immediately by the curious combination of sweet and bitter.

He swallowed one gulp and choked in surprise. "What is this!" he spluttered.

Courier Six appeared again, grinning. "An acquired taste I see. I've been drinking this stuff since I was a kid. Or at least as long as I remember, and I can remember patches dating back to about… uh, six? Young," he concluded.

Their conversation was cut short as the mantis on the other side of the door met with some luck, ramming into the door and splintering the wood.

Through the gap a large foreleg covered in spines pointed at them before scratching at the door, trying to push it out of the way.

A female, it seemed. I don't know if mantis nests have queens, or even if mantises actually nest, but the lodge was close enough to being one, and the sizeable being in front of them was close enough to being a queen.

"I'll take care of it," Follows-Chalk said, drawing his handgun and advancing on the creature.

The Courier heard it hiss at him as he approached. Placing the shotgun on the bench and opening another dusty draw he grinned triumphantly; the two-way radios he was looking for. A way to communicate over long distances with little more than the press of a button and the wonders of the Time Before doing their magic.

In the state they were in they were useless; their wiring had long since eroded, and components needed replacing, but Joshua had assured the Courier that the man 'Daniel' would be able to solve those problems.

Did you see the trick I hid in my telling?

Mantises don't hiss.

The Courier realised this, eyes widening. He pulled himself up, rolling over the counter as his feet slipped in the same unmentioned substance as before, ruining what would have been a more impressive jump over the wooden surface instead.

"Chalk!" he yelled in warning.

"Hoi?" the scout wondered, taking aim and firing at the strangely distorted giant mantis.

He made to turn and see what his friend was going to show him, and was instead tackled to the ground, coming to rest behind what was left of a couch. "Courier, what are you doing!"

A few moments of silence followed as the Courier waited, listening to the hiss of the leaking gas pipe as its contents bled out, awoken by the giant mantis' furious movements.

Sighing with relief, he let go. "You must have been far enough away to not get cooked," he sighed. "Firing a weapon like that when there's gas in the area is a one-way ticket to getting incinerated. You're lucky the whole building didn't go up."

The explanation took a few moments to process. "Oh," the scout said finally, unsure if he could figure out anything else. Had he moved a little closer he might have been blown to pieces. The feeling that follows is not one that easily translates into words, as 'relief' can only describe so much.

"Bruci dovde ustlevate se coloca!" came a yell from outside.

"White Legs!" Follows-Chalk hissed.

The sound of a bottle shattering came coupled with the thud of kinetic– sorry, that one might be a bit beyond you. The sound of a bottle shattering came coupled with the thud of physical force against the wall behind the small store room with the gas leak.

A second followed it, and the Courier realised what was happening.

"Get out of the building!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and running for the door. Confused, the scout followed as the flames on the other side of the building, made stronger by alcohol, licked away at the rotting timber.

Six didn't stop to look around for tribals upon leaving the building, instead opting to throw himself down the slope they'd ascended to reached it, huddling down beneath the peak and hoping for the best.

Follows-Chalk was slower to the punch, looking around for the enemy even as the Courier ran for cover. Not fully understanding the situation, he lingered a moment too long.

"Courier, what's going on?" he wondered, running to the slope.

"Get dow-!" Courier Six attempted to command, but he was too late.

The building exploded, the shockwave shattering the timber and crashing into the back of the young scout, throwing him down the slope in a tumbling mass of limbs with no idea what was going on.

The following moments were distorted, a dull ringing destroying the Courier's ability to hear anything as the shockwave send pieces of the lodge in all directions.

Through the ringing, the Courier would later admit, he could hear something else. Not something in the world around him, but something knocked loose within his mind it seemed to him. Or perhaps another memory returned to him.

All he knew, he said, was that the voice did not belong to the two women of his life that he could remember.

Beyond that, he knew that despite what she was saying, her words made his eyes unfocused, and bitter despair and resentment flood his mind.

_I have you to thank for all this._

The White Legs were gone when he stood up, though one of their number had been smashed in the head by a piece of the rusted metal from the burst pipe. It had entered through his cheek and before he'd hit the ground it had severed his brain from his spine and exited out a bloody slash at the back of his head.

Shaking himself off, the Drifter slowly pulled himself back from the darkness of his memory, regaining his sense of hearing. His eyes returned to focus, and he managed to awaken to the world once more.

Sparing a gaze down the hill he located Follows-Chalk, and slowly made his way down the hill after him.

"Courier," the young scout managed to drone, "I can't feel my arm."

The force of the shockwave had thrown the scout down the hill, and he'd continued tumbling until finally something stopped him, and there he had lain, briefly flickering out of consciousness, on his side.

Crouching beside him and examining him, it became immediately clear that somewhere down the line he'd broken his arm – it was bent backwards over his side, fingers open and unresponsive, unable to grip the pistol that had slipped from his grip and clattered a short distance away.

"Ah shit, Chalk. We're gonna need to get you to a medic," he sighed, delicately trying to pull the young scout up into a sitting position from which he could stand without a Courier who didn't know which action would inflict searing pain 'helping'.

He yelped a few times regardless, but quickly enough both of them were standing and ready to set off. The Courier turned back in the direction they had come, making to move back to the Dead Horse's camp.

"No, we have all the equipment," the young scout pointed out. "The Sorrows are closer, and Daniel is the best healer in Zion."

"Ah, the Sorrows. The people in blue from the bridge yesterday, right?" the Courier asked, collecting the scout's weapon and handing it to him.

Holding it like it was completely unfamiliar, Follows-Chalk experimentally took aim while holding the weapon in his left hand.

It would take some getting used to, they could both tell.

"This way. We go to the Narrows," he said, brushing off the impairment and wincing as the arm hung uselessly at his side.

"Keep it steady, and let's move fast. We don't want the White Legs coming back, and if the Sorrows are nearby we need to get under cover as soon as possible and sort that out," the Courier said, striding alongside him and drawing the rifle upon his back.

"We need to hurry, or we'll be caught in it," the scout said, grunting as he took his arm gingerly and held it steady while casting a glance into the skies.

They kept a steady pace, making their way through narrow slots between rock-faces and slipping behind hills as they moved, taking care not to leave themselves exposed.

Follows-Chalk stumbled as they walked, and when he turned to let the Courier lead he had paled considerably.

To try and keep his mind off the dull pain and keep him conscious, the Courier engaged in a tired technique that nevertheless proved quite effective.

"So, Chalk, what're you gonna do after all this is over? Because I think living in Zion is going to really ruin any holiday destination ideas you've got," he joked.

The scout smiled as he replied. "I'd like to go and see New Vegas. I want to see if people really trade away everything they own to watch people flip those pieces of paper over. It must be a truly beautiful show, although I wouldn't have much to give for it. Or maybe I'll go and see the Divide. Or maybe Flagstaff. Oh, the Grand Canyon! No, I've heard stories about a place called Big Empty where the wonders and horrors of the Old World are on display!"

"Slow down there, kid," the Courier chuckled, mentally noting down each of the places. "What's the deal with all this interest in the 'civilised' lands?"

The young man looked away to the south, suddenly embarrassed by his childish outburst. "Let me tell you a story," he said finally, turning his head back to the path ahead. "When I was a boy, a man came through the valley with one of the caravans. Tall man, big moustache, carried a guitar. I asked what he did for his living, and the interpreter told me he was a singer."

The figure sounded familiar to the Courier.

"'What is that?' I asked. The man explained that he went from place to place and sang for people, who gave him food and shelter and care in return. I couldn't believe that there was a place in this world where a man could do that. I promised myself then that one day I'd explore that world myself."

"Huh, I've met that guy," the Vagabond laughed. "Joshua think it's a good idea?"

"I… um… I haven't told him yet. Never had the growans," Chalk admitted.

The Courier thought about how Joshua might have reacted to Follows-Chalk telling him he wanted to leave Zion for lands like the Mojave. He had difficulty predicting it, given that he knew so little about the real Joshua Graham, and whatever images he had in his head were prone to being disproved. He might have punished the young man severely for holding ideas the Burned Man didn't agree with, but then again he might even have just sighed, smiled, and quietly agreed.

Joshua Graham was a wild card in Six's deck.

"Maybe I'll tell him. Doesn't matter so much if he gets pissed at me, I only have to deal with him as long as I'm here," the Courier offered.

"You'd do that? Sure, sounds smart to me. He _might _not get so mad at you," Follows Chalk concluded.

"I hope not, it'd suck to have him mad at me. I'd feel like Caesar without the huge army to protect me," the Drifter chuckled.

"Caesar's Legion…" Chalk said, thinking deeply. "What's it like in the Mojave, where they're fighting?"

"Wanna learn a little more about the 'civilised lands' before you travel down there huh?" Six asked.

"It sounds so… different."

"It is. People fight over little things. They take what they don't need, they cheat each other out of money with traps made out of words and paper, and bend the rules so that when it comes time to judge who is right and who is wrong they've constructed the illusion of innocence. That's what it's like in some places, where everything's a game of appearances versus reality."

"And yet you want to go back there?"

"I have things I need to do there, and people I need to meet up with. It's not all bad, though. There are good people there, the people who have lived there a long time. The sort of people who are just trying to survive and make a living in the Wasteland. Those sorts of people I can get along with."

"What about Caesar's Legion then?"

"Haven't come into contact with them much, but what I have I can't say I liked very much. They're brutal, sadistic, and their sense of justice is just… warped. I don't know how they managed to build a nation, let alone how Arizona thrives like they say it does. Maybe I'll look into that when I go back."

Follows-Chalk nodded to a passage between two high cliffs where river forked, similar to the Eastern Virgin. "There, Courier. Between the rocks."

There were torches alight beyond it, he saw as they waded through the water. Further in he could see the rope bridges strung between the narrow rock faces, bridging natural paths that jutted from the stone and retreated back into caverns.

The Narrows, where the tribe known as the Sorrows hid themselves from the eyes of the White Legs. One of many passages concealed in the stone walls of the canyon.

Something tapped the Courier on the shoulder.

He turned to see what it was only to be tapped again. He turned back and felt a tap on his head.

"What the-?" he began, before he was tapped again. It began to happen faster, sometimes multiple times at once. He placed a hand on his head. Wet. Was he bleeding?

The taps landed on his hand as well, making it wet.

"Chalk, the hell's going on?" he said, panicking. He drew his hand back down to find that all he had on it was water.

Confused, he looked up and was struck in the eye with a drop of water.

The scout looked around. "It's raining!" he laughed.

"Rain?" the Courier wondered. Yes, of course he'd heard of it. Rain of bullets, rain of blood, rain of criticism. This was what it was based on then. 'Rain' of water.

Zion never ceased to amaze him. He knew that there were other places in the world where things rained from the sky, but it was dust in those places, or ash.

But here in paradise it rained _water_.

The impossible just kept pretending to be mundane in this place.


	24. Like Streams in the Negev

__That time o' the week again, ladies and gents. Well, guys, this being the internet. Thoughts and comments are always appreciated, everyone. We're getting on in our little story about Zion now, the meatier chunks coming into light.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Like Streams in the Negev<strong>_

_Date of Log: 22nd November, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: 09-15-74_

Bitter Springs was a large camp of Great Khans to the north of Lake Mead. From what I remember they don't still have it though.

Back then though we were coming back feeling like heroes, and everyone in the place seemed pretty happy to hear the story time and time again. I don't think I ever saw Chance grin as widely as he did those days, but I'm sure something will come back to me in time that'll change that. I must have done something awesome to impress him.

We'd been there for about a week, resting up, keeping quiet in the day and partying hard at night.

Wonder how many intoxicants I'd welcomed into my body in less than a year with the Khans? Maybe that bullet cleared up as much as it destroyed.

At least three weeks after Chance's birthday and we were all still riding that wave of euphoria. We'd blown up a fucking comms building. For all I know we crippled Nelson. Hell, I could be the reason the Legion had it last time I heard.

…hmm, I've made myself all depressed now.

Doesn't matter now though. What matters is the memories. It's why I make these logs, after all.

On this particular day we were sitting on one of the rock formations overlooking the sizeable camp, with a view rolling down to Lake Mead and on to the horizon where the water met the sky.

Alyssa, Chance, and a few others. One of them is dead, I know. Saw him die. The other two, both women, I don't recall. They weren't as close to me as Chance and Alyssa were, though.

Heh, Alyssa and I had certainly gotten closer in the time we'd known each other. Chance wasn't the only one getting a present the night of his birthday.

We were smoking something Diane had given us. A huge bag of some deep red plant, torn up so that it could be packed into a pipe and burned. One of those 'feel good' drugs that was all about making you brain dead for a few hours.

I think she explained to me once that it basically tricked your brain into thinking you'd just had sex, or near enough to that. I don't know if it was quite the same kind of a high, but I was definitely relaxed, sitting up there.

"Hey, you reckon we could do something just as awesome next year?" Chance ventured.

"Nah man, we gotta make it better," said the other man with us. Johnny. His name was Johnny. Johnny Caps, he called himself. Skinny guy who wandered around without a shirt all the time, pretending he was bulletproof.

Shows what he knew.

But for the time being he was alive, and we got along.

"We could nail something they really want to keep, instead of just a shitty town," Alyssa posited. "You know, like a strategic location."

"What, take out their outpost into the Mojave?" I wondered.

"Yeah. Stop them from getting in here. You know they recently went over to that old wall bridge thing and started poking around?"

"Hoover Dam," Johnny Caps clarified.

"Whatever. And they're looking at Vegas too. Greedy bastards are gonna try and take it, I'd bet," Alyssa said.

That they'd so quickly taken Nelson had been surprising already. I guess it was because the place had a working radio tower, and the NCR were always eager to grab any form of technology they could wrap their hands around. Thinking about it, breaking that comms tower might really have been a serious problem for them.

I definitely didn't care then, though. Or even consider for a moment the war that was going to come. Sure, there were skirmishes, but what's going on in the Mojave now is just so much more.

"What about that slaver army?" one of the girls asked. "The one in Arizona?"

"My parents used to talk about it," I said. "My dad thought they were monsters, but my mother used to say she knew the guy who ran it. Drove him up the wall."

"Did what?" Alyssa wondered.

"Drove him up the wall. Old World saying. Pissed him off," I clarified.

Johnny snorted. "If 'pissed off' is what you mean, then say it pissed him off. None of this prettying up your sentences, mister 'I can read'," he spat, venting one of his pet peeves.

Johnny Caps was an illiterate, having grown up an orphan on the wastes. What little he claimed to know of his parents was that they'd been smalltime criminals framed for a bigger crime to keep a druglord walking. They'd been executed and he'd been thrown into whatever garbage bin they threw the children of dead criminals.

Not a fun way to grow up, really, but he'd risen from those ashes like a self-proclaimed 'scrap-metal phoenix', (which was also the name of a band he tried to start at least six times over my days with the Khans) killing his caretaker one afternoon and then shooting up the whole place.

He got out, went on the run, and eventually was picked up by some wandering guy who never said his name. All Caps remembered of him by the time I knew him was that he was big, dark-skinned, and carried a shiny walking stick with a bird on top.

Sounds a bit eccentric, but who am I to judge?

"Well a big sorry, Johnny. Let me apologise for my extravagantly asinine vocabulary," I said with a grin.

His cracked aviator glasses dropped over his nose. The bloodshot eyes behind it were glaring at me. He didn't like it when I talked over his head. Can't blame him. Never stopped me from doing it though. Way too much fun.

"But they're coming west these days. I've seen them sometimes wearing the red armour," the girl who'd broached the subject said, putting us back on track.

"Think they're making a move for Nevada too?" Chance thought. "Gonna see if they can grab it before the NCR?"

"Maybe the next base we blow up is gonna be one of theirs," I chuckled, looking out over the lake.

"You've got plenty of time to plan it," Chance said, leaning back and grinning. "Make it a good one."

"Why, is it a special occasion?" Johnny wondered.

"It's my fucking birthday, of course it's a special occasion," Chance pointed out.

"Yeah but is it a special birthday? Like turning 30 or something?"

"Do I look thirty to you?"

"You're a walking mountain, it's really hard to tell," I pointed out. "I mean, I'm not saying you look old, but you are way too big to look however old you really are."

He seemed to consider that deeply for a moment, retreating into his inner thoughts and staying silent. Or maybe he was just really high. It's an ambiguous difference.

We all sat there quietly, sinking back into a serene state, looking out over the lands.

The sun drifted down into the earth to the West, vanishing slowly from the world and leaving darkness to flow from the East and blanket the sky.

Finally, Chance returned from his thoughts on a different train of thought. "By the way, Alyssa," he began.

"Yeah?"

"Next time you decide to go slipping from your tent into someone else's naked, make sure nobody else is around," he said, the grin on his face back instantly.

She looked at him, visually trying to stop her face from turning red and only causing it to happen faster.

Everyone laughed, and she remained adamantly silent.

"Which reminds me. Nice moves, man," Chance added, leaning forward and raising his hand for a clumsy high-five, which I met without much grace.

"Hah. Cheers," I replied, still laughing. "Long as seeing's all you're doing."

"Far be it from me to steal. I mean, what do I look like? A Great Khan?" Chance said, the grin still growing wider on his face.

Our spirits were good, and aside from her venture the previous night being exposed, Alyssa was in just as good a mood (as I was later made physically aware of). As evening came and the six of us sat up there on those rocks, high on something I still can't remember the name of, everything felt good.

It had taken some time, but I'd fit in with the Khans, and I was one of them now. A brother in arms, and happy with my place.

"To us," I said, raising my hand in the absence of a glass. "We fucking rock."

"To us," Chance agreed. "Nobody messes with us."

"To us," everyone said in unison.

_~ 2248 ~_

_Caesar begins his conquest of the tribes in northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, west New Mexico and southeast Utah._

The Narrows were true to their name. Corridors walled by natural rock formations spiderwebbed up towards the sky, slopes carved out by the hands of both man and the forces of nature aiding in reaching their heights. The lowest level was the river flowing back into the more open space of paradise, flowing from waterfalls that tipped out of veins in the stone like the rejuvenating blood of the planet herself, still beautiful and pure in the one place that was Zion.

It had a mirror in the Divide did Zion. That seems to be the way of the world; two of everything, one a bleak inverse of the other. Zion and the Divide. The New California Republic and Caesar's Legion. The Enclave and the Brotherhood. America and the distant world they once fought with. The Couriers.

Stories for other times, should any of you care to hear them.

Amidst the stone halls and rushing waters the Courier and his injured ally, Follows-Chalk, had been approached by a woman dressed in the blue clothing of the Sorrows. Her head was shaved bald, and running down from her collarbone were tattoos – lines flowing like rivers down to her legs. A collar of feathers plucked from a bird whose name I do not know rose from the back of her neck, high and impressive. On her arm was one of the large Yao Guai gauntlets. Fearsome objects.

"You are the one Joshua sent to us," she said. The Vagabond recognised her as one of the Sorrows who had been fighting for the bridge. One of the last to leave, at that. "Blessings of the Father in the Cave on you – Daniel is waiting for you."

"First thing's first. Follows-Chalk has injured himself. My medical experience is limited, even moreso now than it used to be, but even I can see that he's broken something. I need someone who can help patch it up," the Courier said, diverting the woman's attention to the young scout's arm.

She nodded in agreement. "We will take him to Daniel. He has knowledge of medicine far exceeding our own," she explained, gesturing up river and setting a brisk pace.

"How're you feeling, Chalk?" the Courier asked, following quickly.

One word was all the other man cared to spend on it. "Injured."

"Fair enough. So, sorry to cut you off like that, but we kind of needed to address that first," the Vagabond apologised.

"No, that was the right choice," the woman agreed. "Daniel will be able to help."

"I've heard his name a lot, but I still don't really know a lot about him. Who is Daniel?"

The woman smiled as they passed underneath one of the numerous rope bridges constructed in the Narrows over the years. The rain continued to pour, relentless amounts of liquid falling from somewhere far into the sky in a phenomena experience very rarely in most places of the world. "Daniel is a wise man, and a great friend to the Sorrows. He taught me to speak the language of New Canaan – the English from the holy books."

"How long's he been with you all?"

"Six years. He attended the birth of my third child. It was a hard birth. The River nearly carried my water to the Father, and my child's with it. Daniel knew the ways of New Canaan's medicine. He stepped in and saved both of our lives."

The Courier did not entirely understand what the woman was telling him, having yet to gain knowledge of the Sorrows and their ways, but he remained quiet and listened, a skill he did not learn from the empires great and small of the Mojave.

"After the birth, I asked Daniel if he would teach me what he knew of childbirth. He agreed, and so here I am."

"I see. So he's like Joshua. He helps the tribe and serves as a stand-in leader," the Wanderer summarised.

"Yes, though his views do not always see him agreeing with Joshua Graham," the Sorrow replied. "Daniel! We have an injured man!"

They had come to a waterfall at the end of one of the narrow roads within the Sorrows' camp, though it quickly became apparent that the road did not end with the naturally aquatic curtain.

Stepping from behind it, following a small wooden path that edged around the current, was a man wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, dirty pants that covered his entire legs, and thick leather boots underneath. He wore a belt with a golden buckle. I don't quite recall what was on it, but I believe he once told me it stood for peace.

On his head was a large, wide-brimmed hat not unlike those seen on many pictures from the Time Before that described life in the dusty lands like the Mojave.

His jaw was solid and square, with a thick beard clinging tightly to his jawline and rising up his cheeks, running up to cover the space between his nose and lip.

He laid eyes on the Courier and immediately knew who he was. "The Dead Horses told me details about the attack on your caravan. A stranger's sympathy might not count for much, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry. The Sorrows will mourn your friends too. They mourn everyone, even the White Legs. They have sensitive souls. Innocent, if there is such a thing."

Courier Six turned to Follows-Chalk. "My friend here is wounded, before we get into anything else."

Daniel looked at the scout, and his face changed. Focus flowed into him. "Of course. Bring him inside, I'll have one of the Sorrows help me. Thank you for bringing him to me, Waking Cloud."

The woman nodded, though with more reverence than usually allotted to the action. "Blessings upon you, Daniel," she said, taking her leave as the Courier followed Follows-Chalk and Daniel behind the waterfall.

"Soothing Winds, help young Follows-Chalk. Show me you've been listening all this time," the man instructed, gesturing to a Sorrow standing in the cavern beyond. Two more were present, and moved to help the scout as he was led over to a table built from wood and covered in blankets to make it more comfortable.

"So you're teaching them how to survive," the Wanderer observed.

"The skills to save themselves from many of life's unseen threats as well as simple wounds. Diseases can claim so many, and they simply lack the basic knowledge that could have saved so many today," Daniel sighed. A fire pit had been set up against one of the cavern's walls, and dug into the wall above that a rack from which two chunks of gecko meat were hanging, slowly cooking. "In spite of what's happened, I hope that Joshua and I can help you get out of here. But to be frank, we need your help, too."

"You must not have spoken with him recently then. I'm in no hurry to leave. He sent me to collect a few things, too. Here, you wanted walkie talkies, a compass, some old lunchboxes, a first aid kit, and this last one was hard to get, but a mining detonator, right?" the Courier replied, digging through his pockets and expelling the first half of his list before Daniel. "Chalk has the lunchboxes and first aid kit stashed back at the Dead Horses Camp. Too much to lug about, so we ended up making a trip back mid-morning. As for the detonator, I'll pass that on after I'm done pretending it's hooked up to stuff and I'm exploding things."

Daniel's brow furrowed, unsure if the Courier was merely making a joke, or if he had genuinely spent a small amount of time in the morning pretending to do just that. "Well I'll be," he said finally. "I was starting to lose hope we'd be able to get any of this, much less all of it. Tribals are smart, but… well, they're ignorant. Letting go of a taboo is difficult for them, so I knew it would have to be one of us. Turns out all it took was a Gentile. Or, uh, no offence. These supplies are a godsend"

"So what did you need all this stuff for?" the Courier wondered, ignoring the comment and the fact that he didn't actually know what 'Gentile' meant.

"To navigate once we leave Zion," Daniel stated, checking the food above the fire and taking a seat in front of it.

Follows-Chalk yelped from the table as one of the Sorrows applied something while the other attempted to calm him down. Daniel seemed satisfied that it was merely part of the process, however painful.

"_Leave_?" the Wanderer said, at a loss. "You want to leave one of the most incredible places in the world?"

"When the alternative is to force the Sorrows into a battle they did not ask for, are not prepared for, and do not deserve to be subjected to?" Daniel replied with a sad smile. "I understand the way you think, and in any other case I might agree. I don't like battle, but sometimes one must be a part of it to defend those who need it. But not the Sorrows. They can settle a new land, and continue their history from a different place. They can begin again, without the White Legs upon them."

"What do you intend to do about that? They're not going to leave you alone just because you don't want to fight back. They'll just treat it like sport," the Wanderer pointed out. "You're going to have to fight back in some way. You planning to just leave Joshua and the Dead Horses behind and let them fight the battle?"

Daniel shook his head firmly. "No. All of us will leave, covering our tracks and making sure that the White Legs can never follow us," he explained. "The Dead Horses will be able to return to their ancestral grounds of Dead Horse Point, the Sorrows will cultivate a new place, and no blood need be spilled."

"Except the White Legs get Zion."

"I would trade Zion for the life of one, let alone all of the Sorrows," Daniel said staunchly, and somehow despite adamantly defending the pacifist decision, the fight in him was overwhelming.

The Courier nodded, eventually. "Alright, I understand. Then what do you need?"

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," Daniel said with a small smile. "There aren't a lot of people in the wasteland with kindness to spare for anyone who isn't kin. The mining detonator is going to be used to collapse some of the roads to slow down or outright stop the White Legs. Now the Sorrows aren't the most technologically minded people, and Joshua could use the extra time you'd give him by doing the job for us. You said you liked the explosion aspect."

"Oh wow. It's like… what was it? Christmas?"

"Hah, it certainly is. Merry Christmas, have some mining explosives," Daniel laughed. "Stay in the Narrows a while, I'll make the arrangements. There are two canyons that lead to the path we'll use to escape. One of them we'll use to escape, but the other could be used to head us off. Using the mining explosives you can bring down a section of the cliffs around it and block the area off. If they want to try and use it it'll slow them down considerably, giving us the time we need."

"Alright. Create a rockslide and block off a canyon. That it?"

"No. There are… two other ways," Daniel said, his voice dropping low as he spared a glance towards the Sorrows who were now bandaging Follows-Chalk's arm.

"Yes?" the Drifter pressed.

"There are two caves that are considered taboo places by the Sorrows," Daniel explained. "They believe all caves are sacred to a guardian deity – the Father in the Caves. But if the White Legs were to take advantage of that, it could mean dire consequences… I can't have that. So, while it pains me to do this to them, I need you to collapse the caverns. Can you do that for me?"

The Courier looked long and hard at Daniel in those moments, thinking about the proposal. Eventually, he gave in. "If it will save the Sorrows," he said finally.

Daniel made his gratitude no secret. "Thank you. I know what I'm asking, and if there were any other way I'd gladly take it," he said.

"Unless it involved fighting," the Courier said quietly.

Daniel fell silent, aware that neither of the two enjoyed this discussion, nor what they'd just agreed to do to the Sorrows' faith.

Finally, the New Canaanite gave in at reigniting the spark of conversation. He checked the gecko meat again, and then stood up. "Well enjoy your stay here in the Narrows. The Sorrows are an accommodating people, and I'm sure you can find a moment's rest from the fighting here," he offered awkwardly.

Nodding, Courier Six rose to his feet and looked to Follows-Chalk, who was sitting on the table with his arm wrapped in bandages Daniel had brought into the valley with him. It hung from his arm in a sling looking pitiful, but the Sorrows who tended the wound had been kind enough to use some of their few stimpaks, and the miraculous drugs would do wonders to speed up the process of healing, making something that originally might have taken months into something that would likely take at most two weeks.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he said, nodding to the acting leader of the Sorrows before leaving, the scout in tow.

"So, strange views, yes?" Follows-Chalk said as they stepped back into the waters of the Sorrows' camp. "Carries a gun, but doesn't like fighting."

"He'd fit in with the Followers of the Apocalypse. Idealists who want what's best for the world, even when the world doesn't notice," the Courier explained. "He's trying to do the same thing they are. Move forward without resorting to violence and war to get a point across. Give a man knowledge instead of a bullet, words over weapons, stuff like that."

Follows-Chalk considered it. "But fighting is important to survival. If we cannot fight, then we are broken by those who can," he protested, unable to see the logic in the views of people like Daniel and the Followers.

"They're trying to build a world where nobody needs to do that. So if one person refuses to fight he isn't just crushed by someone who's happy to compromise."

"Is such a thing possible?"

"Hell if I know. Fighting's all I've seen since I woke up in the Doc's house, and a lot of my memories seem to involve it too. Maybe it's just part of life."

"I know it is for us Dead Horses," Follows-Chalk admitted. "We fight for our land, we hunt and kill to eat, and now here we are at war to protect the Sorrows."

"Yet Daniel and the Followers would tell you you're wrong," Courier Six said thoughtfully. "We'd say 'no, you can defend your land through negotiation, you can collect food without killing things, and…' hm. I'm not sure what the response to 'defending the weak' is."

"You said 'we', Courier," Follows-Chalk noted.

"Hm, did I? Must have slipped out."

"Listen, Courier," the scout began, rubbing the shoulder of his injured arm. The bandages were getting wet in the rain, but they'd hold. "The Sorrows who patched me up told me that a party was going to go to the Dead Horses camp soon. They suggested I go with them."

"Oh," the Vagabond replied. "Guess hanging around me might be bad for your arm."

"I want to say thank you," Follows-Chalk said, smiling.

"For what, Chalk? So far all I've done is talk your ear off and break your arm."

"Well, aside from the breaking my arm part, my time with you has been lots of fun. You've taught me a lot about the world. And you said you'd talk to Joshua about it for me," the scout replied.

"I guess I did. Stories are free from me though, my friend, so no need to go thinking it's a big deal that I like to talk," the Courier chuckled, before recalling something said the evening before. "Oh! Joshua said one of the Dead Horses could repair this old thing."

He slipped his father's duster off his shoulders, surprised at the weight removed with it gone, and draped it around the shoulders of his young ally. "Take it back with you and get 'em right onto it would you? I don't feel right without it."

The leather armour he wore underneath had scrapes and scratches where creatures had come close to damaging him, and in some places they had, holes leading to partially healed wounds from his time on the road dotted over his torso.

By reflex he'd tried to keep his coat out of harm's way, but that hadn't always been a successful venture, and as a result the bullet holes made by the White Legs were not the only rips and tears in the old fabric.

The machete carved with a six hung on his belt. An old weapon, that once held no history. How all things begin, of course, is without history. Most weapons are made to kill, or to maim, and their history comes in their use. Some impersonally kill hundreds, and accumulate no more sentimentality than that of a good tool – the hunting rifle upon Courier Six's back. Some take on stronger roles. Faithful companions in the thick of battle – the pistol his father wielded. A foe turned ally – the late Chairman's handgun, affectionately titled 'Maria'. And the machete, of course, which spoke of tales the Courier had yet to tell, even to himself.

Vengeance is part justice, and part revenge.

"Heads up, looks like I'll have a chance to talk to him about things before you go," the Wanderer said, looking up to see the Burned Man walking through the rain towards the two young men.

"I, uh, best go and find the Sorrows who are going to the camp and let them know I will join them," Follows-Chalk quickly made an excuse and took his leave, the Courier's coat over his shoulders, keeping the rain from further soaking his bandages.

Joshua didn't change course to follow the scout as he passed by, bidding him a hello. He simply nodded and exchanged a greeting before his crystalline eyes rested again on the Drifter.

"By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Remember, O Lord, the Children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said, 'Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation'," he began reciting, words that the Courier did not understand, nor had he ever come into contact with their origin before.

He remained quiet as Joshua said his piece, knowing it was inevitably leading towards something more important than mere scripture recital.

"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed. Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones," he said, his eyes piercing straight through the Courier as his words stabbed the air. "Do you know what it means?"

"It means you know what Daniel wants, and you don't agree," the Courier said, knowing full well having seen Graham fight.

"Sin guerra siamos nienta," Pale Omen said in a dangerous tone, emerging from behind the Courier, causing the man to stumble forward in surprise.

"Given the choices of fight or flight, yes. In the best of all possible worlds, they would just leave us in peace. But they won't," Joshua sighed.

"And so war comes to Zion," the Courier said, looking into the sky and feeling the rain pelt down on his face.

"I don't enjoy killing, but when done righteously, it's just a chore, like any other," the Burned Man stated with surprising nonchalance. "Practiced hands make for short work. And the good Lord knows there's much to be done here."

"This isn't quite how I pictured my next conversation turning out, all this 'dashing the little ones against the stones' and 'raze it to the foundation' stuff is pretty nasty," the Courier replied, keeping his eyes on Pale Omen, who grinned with satisfaction at having startled the Drifter.

"Happy are those who do the work of the Lord. Zion belongs to God and the people of God. It is a natural temple and monument to his glory," Joshua said, full of conviction. "When our Lord entered the temple and found it polluted by money-changers and beasts, did he ask them to leave? Did he cry? Did he simply walk away?"

"I suspect not," the Courier said darkly, taking in Joshua's view. He could immediately deny it, given his first instinct was similar, though not identical.

"No. He drove them out. It is one thing to forgive a slap across my cheek, but an insult to the Lord requires… no. It _demands _correction," said the vengeful Burned Man.

"You know what Daniel plans to do. To get the Sorrows out of the valley and leave the White Legs here. What you're proposing, on the other hand, is probably going to get people killed."

"I and the Dead Horses are prepared to do what must be done to protect Zion from the White Legs. And though Daniel won't accept it yet, there are many Sorrows who are also prepared. They may not be warriors, but this is their home," Joshua said, gesturing to the rocks that rose around them, and the streams running between them. Not just the Narrows, but all of Zion.

"This is your choice to make. The two of you. Both raise good points, and you're not pinning the choice on me so the outsider gets blamed when everything goes belly up. I've had that happen to me more than once already. Lousy NCR," the Courier sighed dismissively, not liking that he was slowly drifting into a state of mediator between Daniel and Joshua.

A few more words from each of them and he'd be their official liaison.

Oh, that's a 'go-between'. A person who transfers information from one place to another. The New California Republic is fond of the title. In this case… well, you understand, I'm sure.

"I have asked Daniel to consider defending Zion instead of abandoning it, but it may mean more when your voice is added to the chorus. He has good intentions, but I fear that if we evacuate the Sorrows from this place, it will be lost to them, and us, forever."

"I'll think about it. It's not something I'm just going to decide in a moment," the Courier sighed. The Mojave looked a little more appetising now.

"Of course. I apologise, this is a lot to push upon you. It is not your battle, but you've been swept up in it through no fault of your own," Joshua said apologetically, realising he'd pushed too hard on his newfound ally.

"I understand what you want, Joshua. But the Sorrows… they're not warmongers. They're barely even warriors, from what I've seen. Pushing them into war… I just don't know if it's the right thing to do," Courier Six stated, looking at Pale Omen, who bared his teeth in a dangerous looking grin.

"Of course," Joshua repeated, retreating. "I'll leave you to your thoughts, Courier, I must speak with Daniel."

"Dovrete tengliere wahnto," Pale Omen said as he walked by, shooting the Wanderer a meaningful glance.

With the two others gone as well as Follows-Chalk the Courier found himself alone once more, this time in the rain, something he had experienced rarely, if ever, in his life, and certainly never in the volume that blessed Zion.

The Sorrows around him watched curiously, chattering in their native tongue, one that was about as easy to understand as whatever dialect Pale Omen used. They continued their activities, keeping their distance out of the kind of caution an animal who encounters something radically new displays; curious, but alert.

Thunder boomed in the sky again, roaring over the landscape with earthshaking intensity, redirecting all eyes to the skies above and their contents.

Standing alone, without his coat, the Courier felt strange. He realised that he'd never felt so far away from home, perhaps even before Benny's ambush. He was two weeks at a brisk pace from the Mojave, the land he'd walked for so long.

He'd been telling himself that he could ignore the return trip for a long time and let the NCR's misguided condemnations fade into the background, returning when his actions were not so fresh in the minds of the people. He'd convinced himself as he made his way to paradise that aside from a select few characters, he wouldn't miss the Mojave's dry landscape.

But now the armour he had surrounded himself with was gone as his clothing soaked through and his coat was no longer upon his back. He finally felt the distance between himself and his homeland, and it pained him.

He didn't have long to ponder just how much, though. One of the Sorrows stumbled into his midst, his arm hanging by only half its width.

"White Legs!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs, eyes wide and white with terror and pain.

Thunder boomed again, but this time the Courier heard the blast of a firearm hidden within it, and saw its effects as the weapon's payload ripped apart the injured Sorrow's head, leaving him a decapitated corpse floating in the shallow waters.

The White Legs were upon the Narrows.


	25. Raze it, Raze it Even to the Foundation

__Little late this week, it was a long one for me, absolutely hectic work schedule which unfortunately made me slip behind a little. But like I said when I started this, I try to stay ahead to make sure nobody reading has to notice it, so I'll try and make sure I'm still three or four chapters ahead. For now enjoy a considerably wider divergence in Honest Hearts' storyline. Hope you guys enjoy it this week, I had a lot of fun writing this one.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Raze it, Raze it Even to the Foundation<strong>_

They'd followed somebody to the Sorrows' home. It didn't matter who anymore, whether it was all planned so that they could tail Follows-Chalk and the Courier, whether Joshua had been careless, or whether Pale Omen had betrayed them all, or that a Sorrow had simply been captured and interrogated.

All that mattered now was that they were there, in the Narrows, pushing hard.

Amidst the confusion the lonely Wanderer had no time to spend considering his sudden dismissal of Zion in favour of homesickness.

His guns were in his hands, the heirloom of the man who gave him life, and the trophy taken from the man who gave him death, and he was running through the camp towards Daniel's waterfall cavern. He didn't know why exactly, but the man would know what to do in such a situation better than he. Defend the Narrows? Find a place to retreat to? The Courier could assist with either, but not without knowing which avenues to defend and where to push.

"White Legs! White Legs!" a woman screamed, bolting through the waters and unconsciously switching to tribal dialect. Courier Six could not understand it, but the woman was screaming for her children, that she could take them from harm's way. Like too many others she would end the day crying over a corpse.

He fled through a crossroads, a spray of bullets ripping up the shallow water as he burst across the path of a small group of the attackers, one of whom began hooting and snarling at having missed.

He flattened himself against the rocks and took a deep breath. The rain was making it difficult to see, impairing sight that was already damaged, but he could make these shots if he needed to, if only he knew what exactly to expect when he rounded the corner. If he moved from cover and found a three-man party, one of which was already aiming down a scope at him, a quick death would be the very best scenario.

Fight or flight was a choice made for him though when something soared through the air and splashed into the river three steps in front of him.

The instinct to run would have killed him, the explosion would have torn his back to shreds no matter how fast he could run, and from there he'd have either drowned in the shallow waters, unable to command his spine to hold him upright, or have had the White Legs upon him.

Fight was the only option.

He seized the grenade and hurled it down the corridor the White Legs were advancing through and grinned savagely as the mocking snarls and hoots were cut off in a moment of horrified realisation just before the miniature bomb detonated, taking the foes with it.

"Utman!" came a familiar savage tone. A White Leg the Courier did not immediately try to kill. "Joshua sends!"

"Joshua sent you?" he wondered, peering into the rain around the corner and confirming that there were no survivors amongst the gore.

"Yes. Help you fight. He and Daniel… fight escape," the tribal attempted, clumsily relaying his message.

The Courier thought about it for a moment. "They're retreating," he said. "And they want us to fight them off?"

Pale Omen nodded. "Kill many. Make attention."

"We're a fucking distraction."

"Fucking," Pale Omen repeated. The term was used a lot by 'civilised' people.

"Dunno what he expects us to do. All this rain, I can't see anything," the Vagabond growled, looking around. "We're not gonna kill anything we can't see."

"Kill!" Pale Omen shouted suddenly, dashing through the alley the White Legs were previously advancing through.

"Omen! Wait!" he yelled, once again using a civilised man's favourite word and racing after him.

Aside from the great mantis leg on his forearm the tribal had been raiding the fallen foes he came across. On his back, previously unnoticed by the Courier in the rain, the converted White Leg carried a storm drum, the powerful automatic weapon that his tribe was so fond of.

While 'storm drums' were often accompanied by drum clips, the great cylinders filled with deadly bullets, their name merely came from the violent bursts of sound they sprayed into the air with each press of the trigger. That they could be fitted with magazines that doubled or even tripled the amount of carnage they could inflict was merely an even greater bonus.

Pale Omen wasted no time in finding a use for it. A White Leg dropped towards him armed with the mantis foreleg in an archaic assassination attempt, aiming to use her body weight to drive the weapon deep in his skin.

But that Pale Omen was one of their own seemed to cause her a moment's confusion, and the woman falling through the air screaming threats in a tongue her adversary could understand was suddenly incapable of ever reaching a decision over how to land.

Bullets ripped into the front of her body, tearing holes in the weak flesh of a human and leaving her assassination attempt nothing but a pitiful fall with a disappointed splash as Pale Omen returned to his charge, leaving her to land in the space between the two unlikely allies.

"Moerte aan los heretico!" the man roared, cackling with sadistic delight. "Moerte aan miei nemici!"

The Courier dashed after him, still unsure what plan of action he was truly taking. Joshua was using he and Pale Omen as a distraction while he and Daniel escaped with the Sorrows. It didn't seem a fair plan given Joshua's penchant for battle, but perhaps that was part of the reason he stayed with the Sorrows – to restrain himself, and to use those dangerous skills to defend his charges.

Regardless of why exactly he'd made that decision, the Courier was now trailing the bloodthirsty warrior, finding himself having flashbacks of a time he did something similar with his old tribe, the Great Khans.

His mind seemed to sharpen because of it, and the two were quickly making their way into the battle.

The narrow alley opened up into a wide corridor, one of the primary valleys within the Narrows, with the ledges rising up the walls on top of which perched a number of the Sorrows, armed with bows or rifles. Bridges crossed between the higher points, a network built into the stones over the years, wood holding tight to the rock.

The tribals ducked into cover as another party of White Legs charged, screaming their bloodthirst at the top of their lungs and firing indiscriminately.

It was easy to see where their tactics were flawed as the Sorrows moved to counterattack, massacring the assembled attack party as they stood with no cover in the waters. Pale Omen was among the first to return fire, and struck the first blow.

Making his way past the White Leg, Courier Six made towards one of the slopes leading up to the higher levels of the Narrows, where he could see the only Sorrow he recognised keeping watch with her scope.

"Where's Joshua?" he asked, running up the incline and dropping to his knee beside her, taking a breath and keeping his eyes on the choke point.

"I do not know. He and Daniel are securing the way out of the Narrows. We, the hunters, are holding back the tide until the way is safe," she replied without looking away, her determination clear and strong.

Admirable traits. I always respected her, though it was too long before I finally admitted that, I fear.

"You guys seem to have this place held alright," the Courier said, his guns never more than a moment from where his eyes stared.

"This is an easy place to hold. There are more ways into the Narrows, ones harder to defend," she said. "I would be there, but when the assault began I could reach nowhere but here. We have enough keeping watch, some of us could go to harsher places, but I fear what might happen if we are careless."

Suddenly there was a blast of static from Pale Omen, and he jumped. "Pale Omen, have you found the Courier?" came Joshua's voice.

The tribal reached into a pouch made from animal skin dangling at his side and produced one of the walkie talkies. "El esqui," Pale Omen replied, handing the device to the Wanderer.

"Draze, lehrendiz," Joshua said, before returning to English. "Courier, are you alright?"

He took the device, trying to keep it out of the rain, though not meeting with much luck. "I'm alive, Joshua. Am I to assume you're using Omen and I as a way to draw fire while you get the Sorrows to greener pastures?"

"Daniel wants to make the evacuation from Zion now, but there is too much chaos now. We cannot coordinate the effort, but we can move ourselves to a place the White Legs have yet to break," Joshua explained. "I do not mean to use you as a distraction, merely to ask that you assist the Sorrows in defending the Narrows for as long as possible. The more of their kin we can get out the better. Daniel and I are working to clear the path, but the White Legs are already here. Push them back and keep them off our backs, or the White Legs will crush the Sorrows."

"Where are the Dead Horses?"

"Coming, but not quickly enough. In the best scenario they will strike a blow to the White Legs' rear, but it will ease your suffering, not ours. If they can route them, though, the ones upon us will be forced back. We may even hold the Narrows another night, but not unless we can keep them from succeeding in a frontal assault."

"Joshua Graham, the northern choke is well held, but I fear for the other ways," the woman spoke up, looking at the device in the Courier's hand and relaying a message through it.

The next voice to speak was Daniel's. "Waking Cloud, be careful. One of our scouts reported that Salt-Upon-Wounds has been a part of the assault. He's been moving towards the Braid, it's the weakest point."

"What! Daniel, why didn't you tell me!" Joshua demanded.

"Because I knew you would try to attack him, and in doing so you'd lead the Sorrows to their death," Daniel replied, seeming surprisingly calm, though just below the surface his true disgust of Joshua's tactics was just recognisable.

"I could have ended this war," Joshua said furiously.

"Yes, but at what cost, Joshua?" Daniel demanded with equal conviction. "It's not worth victory if there is nobody left to celebrate!"

Courier Six weighed in, or rather stepped between them, metaphorically speaking. "Both of you can argue about this when all's said and done. Joshua, you're helping the retreat now, and it's only going to make things worse if you abandon them. Pale Omen and I will go after Salt-Upon-Wounds and try to take him out. Where is 'the Braid'?"

"I know it. I will take you," Waking Cloud, the female Sorrow, said. "We are well defended here, one of us will not be missed."

"You're going to take Pale Omen?" Daniel said, sounding unconvinced. "Salt-Upon-Wounds is his father, are you sure that's… wise?"

"Non sprechi di mi vomo sir esqui," Pale Omen said viciously. "Vuotare cuttquier nemici anma de mi."

"As he says, Daniel," Joshua said firmly. "What needs to be done will be done. Andate va a affracer frevostro padre. Non del maneso quisiamo voluto, pero dobete usurparlio."

"Si, Joshua," Pale Omen agreed.

The tribal exchanged a look with the Courier. One of cold determination.

"Pale Omen will do what needs to be done," Joshua repeated. "Courier, can I count on your aid?"

"I'm already in the middle of this, and I said I'd defend Zion," the Courier said, summoning up his skill and courage.

"Another debt for me to repay," the Burned Man's dry voice commented. "But one I am glad to owe. Waking Cloud will show you the way to the Braid. We will meet again when the battle is done."

"Godspeed," Daniel said, before the static quieted and the connection was severed.

Courier Six looked up at his two allies, tribals from opposite sides of a war. "Ready?" he asked.

"Go," Pale Omen breathed, a word he knew.

He jumped over the edge, landing in the water below and waiting as the Courier and Waking Cloud moved down the ridge a ways before doing the same. All three dashed back the way Courier Six and Pale Omen had entered the northern choke point, turning in time to watch a horde of White Legs charging in. It was their biggest push, and as the Sorrows opened fire and the White Legs pushed, the small party could only offer a few rounds each as they retreated.

The last thing he saw as he disappeared down the corridor was the tribals pulling the corpses of their fallen allies up and using them as cover against the Sorrows' assault.

"What is the Braid?" the Courier asked as they ran.

"The southeastern entrance to the Narrows. A river that widens out as it leaves them, with small islands sitting over it. The waters twist and turn like they're braided, and that is where the name comes from," Waking Cloud explained, gesturing left at a fork and making for a slope that rose above a lagoon and crossed a rope bridge to its far side.

"These little islands make for good cover?" he continued, stepping onto the bridge and willing himself not to choke on his own breath as he felt how unsteady it was.

"Yes. The White Legs could fight their way through and into the Narrows the easiest from there, and the formation of the land there means they'd be able to reach far in," Waking Cloud continued, slowing as she reached the middle of the bridge.

The rain was beginning to ease, going from a steady, strong downpour into a thick mist, obscuring vision even further, but reducing the need for the Courier to wipe the water from his eyes.

The gunfire told them where they needed to go better than Waking Cloud could as they closed in on their destination a short time later, the rain fading into mist and Pale Omen's speed increasing, ignoring Waking Cloud's directions and choosing the correct paths regardless.

There was a strange look in his eyes as he ran. Determination, yes, but alongside it there was something more difficult to define. It has been a long time since such emotions passed through such eyes. I believe it was a challenge, radiating from the White Legs' very being.

He was a young man challenging his father and his ideals. It doesn't matter if the reason was usurping his seat of power, proving the student had surpassed his teacher, or settling a grudge. It might have been all three. All that mattered was the result of these reasons, the challenge.

The unmistakable blast of the anti-materiel rifle cracked through the air, and someone screamed in agony as they rounded the corner and found themselves facing the Braid.

True to its name and description, the Braid was a crisscrossing river current that passed over itself numerous times, punctuated by tiny dunes that rose above water level, sporting boulder formations that made for perfect cover.

No paths wound up to give a height advantage here, forcing the Sorrows defending it to take shelter behind the boulders in the same manner as the approaching White Legs.

A quick count as they made for the nearest stone cover totalled roughly eleven boulders.

Plenty of cover for both the advancing and defending forces, but it would be far less certain than the northern choke.

"Alright, we're here, but we're going to need to be very careful about this. That sniper is going to slaughter us if he gets a clear shot," the Courier stated, slipping his handguns back into their holsters and opting instead for his hunting rifle.

"That won't make the shot," Waking Cloud warned.

"Neither will yours. But we just need to keep him back. This smog is going to be our advantage over the sniper, but they'll use it to their advantage too," the Courier replied.

One of the Sorrows yelled, exchanging fire with a White Leg. The victor was unclear.

Pale Omen looked over his weapon, anxious to use it once again.

"Omen, aim for the sniper," the Courier instructed, bringing his rifle up and preparing to round the boulder and take aim.

Pale Omen understood, taking a deep breath before peering around just far enough to pull the trigger in the direction of the sniper, a ledge overlooking the far end of the Braid, where it became another river of Zion.

It seemed to work well enough, though through the fog it was difficult to tell. Courier Six slipped around, bringing the hunting rifle down so that he could look down the sights, and immediately pulled the trigger as a tribal who had been slowly advancing was suddenly standing in front of him, assault rifle in one hand and a large chipped knife in the other.

His snarl stayed on his face as his throat exploded in gore, the Courier's reflex shot putting the bullet considerably higher than his heart but still having the same effect.

Suddenly another burst of adrenaline surged through him and he was behind the boulder panting, blood on his face. "They're moving up," he warned.

"Kill!" Pale Omen roared, the bullets spraying across another White Leg who had attempted to move between cover. He dragged himself back with one leg completely limp, but he was still alive, and he'd continue to try and fight them.

Waking Cloud shifted to Courier Six's side, her rifle in hand, ready to take a shot the next time he did.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

Both spun around, scanning amongst the boulders for shots for no more than a second before pulling themselves back behind the stone.

A piece of it exploded as the anti-materiel rifle boomed.

"He's only got one round to a clip, go while he's reloading!" the Courier shouted, dashing for the nearest stone in front of him.

Two White Legs emerged further down the Braid, the first one toting a storm drum, the second a high calibre rifle. Waking Cloud paused and knelt in the water, looking down the sight and firing a bullet straight through the nose of the rifle wielder as he tried to do the same.

The storm drummer opened fire, but the Courier had already grabbed the Sorrow and yanked her behind cover, however unceremoniously. Off-balance, she fell forwards into the sand and dirt.

She muttered something under her breath that the Courier didn't hear.

"Better than taking a bullet," the Wanderer pointed out. She didn't argue.

Pale Omen had slipped elsewhere in the fray, separating the three into two groups, Courier Six and Waking Cloud in one, and Pale Omen elsewhere, on his own.

"How many snipers like that do the White Legs have?" the Courier questioned. "Just so I know if I should expect another one to show up."

"I do not know. The White Legs have uncovered caches of weaponry from the Time Before, high-powered like that one, and full enough to fit an army. They will have more," she said, considering the weight of what that meant.

"We need to get our hands on them. Anti-materiel rifles punch through just about anything you can wear. Heard it said they even go through power armour if you aim right," the Courier said, recalling one of the dreams that slowly told him his own story.

"I do not know what power armour is, but I know how powerful these rifles are. Even wielding them requires great physical strength. Many of us would find it difficult," she pointed out.

"Good point, but the more we have the less they have. That in itself is good. I'm sure we could find people to use them. Defending Zion would be much easie-" he began, but was cut off by a blast from the rifle again, this one felling a Sorrow who had emerged to attack a charging White Leg.

Pale Omen appeared, roaring and charging into the chalk-bodied foe, goring him on the mantis gauntlet he wore, the sharp point digging in between the other's ribs. The White Leg tried to raise the storm drum he held, but Pale Omen headbutted him and forced him back into a boulder.

The blow knocked the wind out of him, giving Joshua Graham's convert time to grab the storm drum of the White Leg, yanking it from his hands and kicking him back into the wall before levelling the first storm drum of the two he now held and emptying its remaining rounds into his torso before tossing it aside.

Courier Six took the opportunity to spring from cover and aim towards the sniper. The figure was visible through the fog, an indistinct blotch rising unevenly from the top of the ridge, but the shot he fired was nowhere near striking home, so he redirected his second to a party of approaching White Legs wading across the river's shallowest point to join the battle for the Narrows.

He fired two more shots, with Waking Cloud taking careful aim and being the only round to reach a target amongst the volley before they opened fire upon them.

Pale Omen took the opportunity to blast their flank, moving through another stream to reach another dry haven while he fired upon them, injuring two and killing a third. He was making his way forward quickly.

"So where's Salt-Upon-Wounds?" the Courier wondered, forsaking the last bullet of his current magazine and reloading.

He spoke louder than he intended to, and was overheard by Pale Omen, who wondered the same thing. "Padre!" he roared. "He venudo desafidarle!"

The sniper fired again, the bullet slamming deep into the boulder Pale Omen was behind. A second round crashed into the water near the Courier and Waking Cloud.

"Great, now there are two."

"Non siecht degno!" came a deep, thick voice, from atop the ridge.

One of the snipers was Salt-Upon-Wounds.

Pale Omen was quick to respond by spraying a volley of bullets towards the ridge and yelling.

"Answers that question," the Courier said, peering around his cover and firing upon one of the two shapes through the mist. They were more distinct now, one larger than the other, but in the hurried motions of reloading their massive rifles. They could have tried to bait them into running out of ammunition, but that was always a gamble, and they were fighting a veritable army who had the supply line and stock to keep themselves loaded for a long time. If Salt-Upon-Wounds had come prepared, he'd be able to siege them long after they were unable to fight back.

Two of the White Legs emerged from a stone to their south, taking the opportunity to strike at Pale Omen. The Courier's rifle swung around, shooting through the arm of one, leaving him unable to fire on the Courier's pale ally. The other grinned savagely, screaming something nobody heard. As his finger reached the trigger, though, he suddenly sprouted arrow bolts in his shoulder, turning his savage and triumphant cry into one of surprised anguish.

Omen sprinted through the water, abandoning his cover in order to continue firing at his father from his vantage on the ridge, barely noticing the two former comrades who had just attempted to slay him, only to be thwarted by his new friends. Because, while he would never have admitted it, they were the closest he had to such things, and while the conditions under which he had come to them were not of his choosing, he found himself following the road now of his own design.

Everyone retreated to cover as the first anti-materiel rifle was reloaded and fired down upon them. The sound of wood splintering was all that signified the death of a Sorrows archer, but the other sniper did not fire. Salt-Upon-Wounds had identified the two out-of-place elements, and had elected them to be his primary targets: Courier Six and his own son, Pale Omen.

Neither side was tempted to make it easy for the other. Tense moments passed as all three allies waited for an opportunity that only drew further away as the first sniper inevitably reloaded and prepared to strike at the first person foolish enough to step out of cover.

Pressing their advantage, more White Legs began to slip between the stones, their howls and comments passed between them carrying the distinct tones of victory. They were sure that they were going to win the Narrows, it was only a matter of time until their foes finally fell, unable to stop the enormous army of tribals.

With their entire society being warriors, the army of the White Legs was no smaller than their total population, including women and children, whereas the Sorrows, until recently, had never even had a role such as 'soldier' or 'warrior' amongst their society, having only hunters trained at tracking and killing game. With Joshua and Daniel leading the majority of them from the Narrows, the defenders were facing an uphill battle.

Whether anyone was prepared to admit it, they were losing slowly but surely.

"Here come another wave. Two around your side," the Courier warned, hearing the sounds of more advancing troops coming through the water. He dropped his rifle, letting it lean against the stone, and produced a pair of pistols.

Pale Omen turned, aiming his storm drum at the two approaching the Courier's side as they came into view. The Wanderer spared a glimpse across at his companion, and grit his teeth. "Omen! Behind you!" he called as the White Leg behind Pale Omen grabbed him and began to strangle him with a gauntlet stolen by the Sorrows, one of the enormous bear's claws, the nails biting into his skin.

His storm drum clattered uselessly to the ground, and before the Courier could even think of making an impossible shot to save him the White Legs had rounded the boulder, the first charging with a rusty makeshift sword, a blade fused into an ancient vehicle handle in a crude but effective manner, the second pointing another storm drum at him.

Waking Cloud found herself facing a man with one of the mantis gauntlets, though one less grandiose than Pale Omen's, while the second of her opponents wielded a blade of more militaristic nature, a brutal combat knife found amongst the weapons the White Legs had uncovered prior to their campaign against Zion.

Her rifle made short work of the first man, reflexively pulling the trigger and forcing him to a knee as a bullet tore into his guts, stunning him and blinding him with pain, but the second was quick to swipe the weapon from her hand, his blade knocking the barrel aside and his physical strength removing it from her hands entirely.

Courier Six pulled both triggers of his weapons and seemed to lose himself briefly, shock at the assault dictating that his fingers twitch until both pistols were merely clicking uselessly.

The barrage succeeded in slaying the White Leg with the sword, causing him to stumble backwards and collapse into the water, empty eyes staring into the misty skies, but the second one pulled the trigger as Maria, Benny's former weapon, succeeded in taking a life where it had previously failed.

The exchange left both worse. The White Leg collapsed back, tripping in the river and losing his footing as the entire clip of bullets were planted in him. Courier Six was numb, his mind bubbling with images. He'd taken a bullet to the right leg, and two more in the abdomen, just above his hip. The pain slowly became apparent to him, but in the moment of shock and pain he was not Courier Six anymore.

He dropped Maria, flicking open the chamber of his father's weapon, a gun that had never been named, and slipping five rounds into the chamber, flicking it back into place and ignoring the pain, however difficult.

Pale Omen in the meantime pushed himself backwards, slamming the back of his head into the nose of his attacker. Both stumbled backwards, and one of the snipers, unable to tell if he was targeting a White Leg or the traitor through the mist, pulled the trigger, sending a bullet smashing through the shoulder of Pale Omen's assailant. The force of the impact threw the son of Salt-Upon-Wounds forward, slamming him into the ground and leaving him disorientated, his back aching.

The man who looked like Courier Six turned his attention further up the Braid, to the ridge. Swinging his right side around the boulder, he first fired an additional bullet into the White Leg who had shot him, making sure he was dead, and then brought his arm up and aimed for the ridge, sending the remaining four rounds towards the shapes up there. Whichever sniper had yet to fire did not manage to pull the trigger before the bullets whizzed by him, forcing both to take cover.

In those brief moments a Courier slipped around the boulder, forcing himself through the water as he bled, grunting with effort, and threw himself against another stone, his blood smearing it as he pressed his wounded side against it to try and slow the loss of blood.

He reloaded, ignoring Waking Cloud's calls that she could try and perform first aid there on the battlefield to help him.

Pale Omen noticed the man's newfound determination, and decided he would not be outmatched, snatching his rifle from the sand, attempting to pull the trigger only to find the weapon had jammed.

Growling, he threw it in the water, further ensuring it would not work, and ran from behind his cover, standing out in the open. "Esiete utal vigliarde lo utal me primataria che percluso lavead?" he yelled, his teeth bared.

Whether or not the un-Courier knew what Pale Omen was doing, the result was the same. He looked from cover to see one of the sniper's forms taking aim at Pale Omen. The other reached to say something. Perhaps 'fire', perhaps 'stop'. Whatever it was remained unsaid as bullets sprayed across both. One of the snipers toppled backwards, either struck or diving for cover. The other pulled the trigger on reflex as two bullets struck him. His weapon dropped over the ledge before him, and he followed soon after.

His last round blasted into the stone Pale Omen had previously taken shelter behind, causing the man to flinch, chunks of stone flicking across his back and cutting it.

The assault complete for the moment, and ground gained, the Courier pulled himself back behind the stone, sliding down to the ground as he leaned against it, and lost consciousness. As he drifted away from Zion, he managed to let loose a name from his past, a being he yearned to have back with him in that moment more than anything in the world.

It was not the name of a parent, nor that of a fallen or forgotten friend. It was not a woman he once knew.

"Cerberus..."

_~ 26 November 2281 ~_

_The White Legs lead an assault upon the Narrows, home of the Sorrows, in an attempt to crush them. While met with staunch resistance, the offence is a complete success._

_Date of Log: 29__th__ November, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: 9__th__ November, 227#_

I'd been on the run weeks already. Months, even. Two, at least, maybe three, with time still left to the journey and supplies dwindling.

Bastards were still following us, too. If they'd had that kind of respect for the girl then this entire tornado of shit would never have touched any of us.

But no, another of my mother's age-old wisdoms proved true once again.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Seems to be how things go with the New California Republic, and nobody from Caesar's Legion but Caesar himself has any real power to speak of, as far as I can tell. They're all just dogs chained to bigger dogs. Caesar's the only one actually holding the chains.

I crept along behind the counter, being careful not to make any noise. I'd never made sneaking a habit, and it was starting to show with how slowly I was creeping through the office, wincing every time a floorboard creaked even marginally.

I paused in front of the cabinet, giving it a look over. Double-locked, it would have kept most junkies looking for a fix out, and anyone more organised than that was probably already paying them for shipments to keep the junkies off their faces on whichever poison they liked most.

Still, I was between those two categories, maybe I was the right kind of material for actually getting in. The top of an old, rusted coat hanger was in hand, slipping into the lock and twitching into place. I started to twist it, feeling my way towards the half-way point to what I sought.

Nope, not quite. Twitching and readjusting it, I attempted to twist it again, only to be met with less success. It wasn't going perfectly, and I needed to get into the cabinet. Patience was quickly disappearing.

Thankfully for me, the next attempt was a successful one, a click and the lock gave in, leaving only one more before I could get at the drugs on the other side.

Then, just for the novelty of the look on my face, I imagine, the unseen forces at work decided it would be better if the makeshift lockpick snapped on the way out of the lock.

I imagine it must have been a rather distraught look, because the next thing I did was kick the cabinet door in and hope I didn't smash anything I wanted to steal.

Glass smashed, pills rolled through the splintered wood, and as I ripped one of the boards that was still locked in place by the unpicked obstacle and tore it aside, I saw that yes, the vials were still alright. A few were bent, but I still managed to grab two handfuls and stuff them into my pockets.

We were close to the border, it would do for the journey, but I could not be sure about after we were away. I wanted to get back to the Mojave, but it would have been weeks before I found another good doctor. Best bet would be to go back and see my mother at Wolfhorn, hope she still had morphine.

That was too far away, and too long a shot to take though. I needed as much as I could get right there and then, and with the subtle approach gone, the less pleasant backup plan was kicked into full effect.

Gun in hand, other reaching for more syringes. I didn't like this, but when you're pushed to do something you don't have time to stop and retreat old ground.

The doctor thumped around, getting out of bed. A few more moments and he'd be there and definitely in a bad mood. But that still left me a brief window. Just a few more…

"Who's there! Get out of here, those are for customers!" he yelled, a growling voice getting closer. "I'm armed!"

"So am I! I need this, or my friend will die!" I yelled back. I didn't want to fight. I didn't feel any desire whatsoever to kill another man, especially one who really did nothing wrong to deserve it this time, but I wasn't going to let him die. I adamantly refused. I'd see him walk again, and we'd go travelling again.

"You pay for those!" the man yelled, kicking his door open as I bolted, the last syringe of morphine in my hand as I went.

"Sorry!" I yelled behind me, genuinely meaning it.

He took it as sarcasm, and fired the shotgun in his hand.

I didn't stop, throwing myself through the pharmacy's front window and into the streets. A town whose name I don't remember, a memory I willingly gave up long before my records were erased.

What I knew right then though was that the ante to my gamble was quickly rising, and I couldn't afford to wait for the whole hand to be dealt before I got out of the game.

"Hey!" a lawman patrolling a dark alley yelled as I raced past it, moving as fast as my legs would carry me.

He was going to step out of the alleyway and start taking shots at me. I was sure of it, and I didn't care if I was proven wrong, because I'd already turned and shot down a side-street, aiming to get away and lead them off my tail. The mail man on the run was still an easily recognisable figure, but at least without them hot on my heels I'd be able to ditch town quick.

They were just on the outskirts, taking shelter at an Old World stop on the roadside. He was injured, she was caring for him as best she could, but she didn't exactly have the knowledge or the supplies to keep him going forever, and if anyone were to arrive and try to shake them down her experience with a handgun was limited to three weeks, and he'd never fired a weapon in his life.

Never needed to, he was always good at getting in close and stopping them that way.

The buildings were scrap and stone, I remember now. One of those towns that the NCR was still in the process of 'converting'. Which meant they'd declared it was their territory, posted police there and installed an NCR-appointed politician to tax the populace, and the townspeople were just in the transition phase where they were ground down enough to accept it.

This proved to be an advantage though, as I bolted past a group of thuggish looking fellows. They made a half-hearted attempt at menacing me, but as soon as they saw the man in uniform following me the grins on their faces were ten times bigger, and they were between me and the lawman, and I was in the clear.

My lungs were empty, begging for a rest by the time I finally stopped sprinting and nearly tripped on my own momentum, appearing in the campground and stumbling. I opened my mouth to call out for them, but she'd heard my approach, and seeing it was me rose from behind the husk of an old car, waving.

"Quickly!" she said. "He needs help!"

I wasn't about to ignore it. I threw myself over the rusted skeleton, clambering over it without much coordination and dropping down behind it, disappearing from sight to anyone coming from the road.

"Hey, buddy, how're you doing?" I asked softly, tone immediately changing, keeping the screaming of my lungs from my mind and pushing it away while I comforted him.

Cerberus sniffed at the air as he realised I'd returned, and whined pitifully.

We'd managed to dig the bullets out on the second night in what was one of the biggest panic attacks I'd ever been stricken with. If she hadn't been there Cerberus might have died on that cold evening, but her hands were steadier than mine, and between the two of us that great shaggy mongrel was still kicking.

"Did you manage to get some?" she asked.

I emptied a pocket, and counted four syringes. I still had two in my hand, and three in the other pocket counted nine. It'd get us to the Divide, and that would be far enough. We'd figure things out once we were out of California.

Grabbed for one and pulled the cap off, taking a deep breath. "I know you don't like this, old boy, but it'll keep you feeling okay while we're on the move, okay?" I soothed.

Cerberus snorted, and then growled as a familiar routine was pressed upon him; she held him down, though he didn't resist, and I pushed the needle under the skin, injecting the drug to numb the pain.

Every single time I did it I worried I'd overdo it. How the fuck did I know how much morphine to give a dog? I don't even know if you're supposed to give morphine to a dog! Even now, just the memory of it – and it is a memory again, now – makes me panic. Hands getting twitchy… shit.

He growled every time, but that smart old thing knew what was going on. Could sense we meant no harm or something, maybe, so he just lay there grunting with discomfort when I jabbed him and then sighing when the effects finally started taking effect.

Hang on… am I crying?

I just dosed him the same amount as always. He was always fine. I remember, dammit. I remember picking that old mongrel up and walking down the road until my feet were covered in blisters and we finally reached the Divide. We walked for a week, and we still had morphine left when we did, because both of us were scared of what overdosing him would do. He was alive. I know because he started whining sometimes. He got snippy with discomfort. He tried to bite me one morning when the pain was especially bad! He lived through that, for fuck's sake! Why am I getting so shaken up by it then! He was alive! He was alive and kicking! We got there! I know we did because even though I could barely stand upright I still carried that dog into the Divide like some cheesy action hero carrying the heroine, and I found a doctor!

He lived! He lived, fuck it all, he lived!

Cerberus lived! M-my best friend survived!

So why am I having so much fucking trouble with this stupid memory!


	26. Wild Card: The Ranger's Reception

So, who likes Wild Cards? So far it seems the opinion on them is mixed. On one hand the change in scenery is nice, yeah? On the other hand, the Courier is the man, accept no substitutes!

Well, hopefully you won't hold it against me that we've still got a few of these to slip in too.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Wild Card<strong>_

_**The Ranger's Reception**_

_Date: 11-24-81_

Cass, being an independent party, had been sent to the free barracks where the other non-NCR personnel were given free reign. No non-NCR personnel in the actual terminal without special permissions, which Cass had not been granted.

The Ranger hadn't even had a moment to argue on her behalf when he was called in to see the Colonel for a debriefing on what was politely referred to as an 'unscheduled mission detour'.

Colonel Hsu was a good person, Morgan could see, but running McCarran and coordinating a large portion of the troops within it was taking a toll on the poor man, especially when General Oliver, the man running the Mojave campaign, basically delegated any task less than appealing straight to his elder, but lower ranking comrade.

To his credit, Hsu had kept a straight face as he began going down the long list of reasons the assault on the prison was worse for the NCR than better. Morgan had tuned out after the first one involving politics – which was the first one on the list, actually.

Eventually, Hsu had paused.

"Some reason this isn't important, Morgan?" he asked.

"I was just thinking about how there used to be Powder Gangers going about and robbing people on the road, and now they're all shit scared because the NCR put their foot down and started doing to them what they kept trying to do to us. Oh wait, that was all me," the Ranger said with a righteously defiant gleam in his eye and a grin on his lips that dared Hsu to counter.

He was happy when he saw Hsu crack a wide grin, before remembering his job and immediately suppressing it. "I don't personally agree with your methods, Morgan. Effective as they are. So I'm going to think about it, and chances are you're getting sent on a dull mission to find a man you're not going to find, because the politicians are demanding we put in the effort so it looks like we care."

This confused Richard, but Hsu would say no more, and sent him on his way.

On his way out of Hsu's office was where things took a less enjoyable turn.

"Ranger Morgan. I've seen your file, and I've heard the latest on your little escapades with that caravan running reject Cassidy," General Lee Oliver spat, striding towards Richard.

Oliver was never seen without his full officer's ensemble, tight green jacket, one-of-a-kind cap featuring a golden NCR bear at its crest, the army pants tucked tight in his black boots, officer's pistol worn openly on his side.

"General," the Ranger acknowledged, boots clicking together and his hand rising to his forehead in salute.

"So, without being asked, you decided to just solve a problem by yourself did you?" Oliver asked, cordial with a taste of sour.

"With respect sir; that it could be accomplished so easily only shows that we should have cleaned the problem up immediately. The powder gangers were a nuisance that just hurt our relationships with the locals and could have easil-"

"You know what you could have done instead, Morgan? Maybe you could have hotfooted it over here so I could decide I didn't like you faster. That way I could have sent you over to Forlorn Hope while it was still standing and maybe you could have worked your magic there, and there'd be no issues. Maybe if you'd followed orders you'd be of genuine use to me right now instead of just dead weight that I can't even sent to Camp Golf."

The message hardly needed any trimming: stick to the schedule, follow orders, and don't improvise with the script.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"You've already done it. Nonetheless, permission denied. Less talking, Morgan, more doing your fucking job. Do you have any idea just how much paperwork I have to go through after all that?"

He gestured to a stack of paper under his arm. Morgan looked a little closer and saw that a chunk (a respectable chunk, but nothing as dire as Oliver was making out) was about the prison incident.

"No, sir."

"Too much. That should be a quiet, nagging problem that I don't give a fuck about because Goodsprings and Primm refuse NCR jurisdiction. They don't want to be our problem, so why should we be protecting them when we could be dealing with our own problems and winning this damn war?"

"The powder ganger problem was a by-product of the NCR's actions in the region, sir. We were the direct cause."

"Morgan, was _I _the one who let the gangers escape?"

"…no, sir?"

"Correct. So I don't have to fucking care. If it was NCR territory being attacked then it would be NCR territory I'd defend. But it isn't. It's neutral territory, filled with idiots sitting on the fence, pickets up their asses, letting us defend them from the Legion without so much as a fucking thank you. So you'll excuse me if I'm more preoccupied with things that I'm actually involved in. Hoover Dam, for instance."

"Of course, sir."

"Good. I'd watch my ass if I were you, Morgan. Or I'll send you to one of the damn Fiend leaders and see how much of a hotshot you are when you're busy balls-deep in Vault 3, down to your last pistol clip and watching another hundred junkies pour out of the woodwork ready to start eating you alive."

"All due respect, sir, I'm not interested in looking at your ass."

It was a curious thing to watch as Oliver's face flushed red, then was reeled in for the sake of composure. The hall to Hsu's office usually had a guard patrolling it and now was no exception, but she'd made an effort to be extra vigilant at the other end of the hall once she noticed Oliver's fury.

"I see you like the suicide mission idea," the General said in a smooth, dangerous tone. "I'll see what I can do, just for you. Dismissed, _Ranger._"

He couldn't help himself. The man was having a go at him, and Morgan was forbidden by hierarchy from saying anything back? It wasn't fair at all, and apparently he couldn't stop himself beyond a certain threshold anyway.

Now it was entirely possible he'd be sent to his death just because his boss didn't like him. Seemed a little unnecessary, but it was clear that this was going to be one of those relationships.

Sighing he slumped against the wall, forehead resting in his hand as he hunted through his pockets for a cigarette. He needed one. Badly.

"…believe the shit they send us these days. Is that was passes for a soldier?"

Oliver's voice wafted through the wall as the Ranger leaned his head back against it, muffled but distinct enough to make out words. Hsu was quieter, but he could just understand his words.

"He's unorthodox, but he did clear the prison without a single casualty to his own men. There's no denying his skill."

"Skill at the cost of obedience is of no consequence. I don't want a powerful loose cannon that's just going to desert as soon as Vegas blasts his eyes with lights. You're not sending him there."

No way. Hsu was trying to send him right to Vegas.

"Think about it, Lee-"

"Oliver. O-liv-er. _General _Oliver."

"Think about it, General. Mason's demanding somebody look into this courier case, and while we both know it isn't going to go anywhere they're still expecting us to put men on it. Morgan's a good ranger, but you want him out of the way? Send him out to find the courier, and he'll either do exactly that or you'll have successfully sent him on a dead end job and punished him enough for his… unorthodox behaviour."

'Courier job'. He'd heard about that one.

"Crocker's been talking to House about the approach taken on that case. Well, as much as anyone can talk to that hermit."

"Why, what's he doing?"

"Something about negotiation. Thinks we might be able to use him."

"We don't even know if it's the same man."

"How many mail men do you know that do that kind of shit? Kills police, convicts, raiders, Deathclaws, slaughters entire settlements, did… whatever the fuck _that_ is to the West, and now he goes and kills one of the most important men in Vegas? No, no, it's the same fucker alright, and he's going to be held accountable."

"Just because it's all impressive doesn't mean it's all one man though, L-General."

"He's a _mail man_ James."

"Alright, alright, that's not important then. We can't know for sure if we should send him until we know what Crocker's agreed to."

"Over my dead mother. I want to send him after one of the Fiend leaders."

Morgan didn't need his head against the wall to hear the next sentence from Hsu.

"You want to do what!"

"He thinks he's such a hotshot; let's see him take out Cook-Cook."

"General, don't you think that's a little much? He's disobeyed orders, not sold information to the Legion!"

"It's not my problem if the bastard thinks he's good enough for it. He pulls that one off and I'll give him a little respect, because this time he'll have carried out a mission properly, instead of just jumping the rails and praying the train doesn't crash."

Having had enough, the Ranger turned and walked away with a sigh.

A short walk later he'd found his way to his room in the barracks. As a Ranger he was afforded his own room to do with as he wished, but it sounded like he wouldn't get a chance to spend many evening in it if he was being deployed to go after a Fiend leader already.

He'd heard the horror stories about them on his way into Vegas. Dealt with them as he passed through Outer Vegas, his rifle always in hand, eyes scanning every potential ambush point and possible sniper nest.

The Fiends hadn't been that organised though. Their strength lay in unpredictability, and more literally in the amount of drugs they took which made them so dead to external sensation that bullets would barely even register pain.

When three finally lurched from inside a dead hotel, coughing and laughing with guns in their hands, they'd been eliminated without difficulty.

The gauntlet that followed had claimed another of Morgan's companions, gunfire igniting a powder keg behind the façade of tranquillity in the dilapidated streets, Fiends alerted and jumpy on every drug under the sun suddenly gunning for a new piece of meat.

'Cook-Cook' was the name Oliver had mentioned. Stories were told about him as well, what he did and who he was.

The name conjured images already. He demanded everything fire-related that the Fiends were able to scavenge be paid to him in tribute. Shipments from the weapon merchants trading to the NCR and to the other forces around Vegas were hijacked, amongst them flamethrowers and canisters of fuel for the scorching weapons. All that burned was given to the Fiend leader to fuel his fascination with flame, with the rest of the weapons finding their way elsewhere.

The Fiends were lead by four, three of them all answering to a single entity within Vault 3, a creature none had seen walking from the dark cavern of rape, torture, carnage and drugs into the light of day. Some questioned if such a bogeyman even existed, or whether it was just a spectre born to make it seem as though the Fiends had a leader that could be slain, like the Legion and their Caesar.

Cook-Cook numbered another, his fascination with fire his defining trait, dragging anything he didn't kill in battle back to whatever hideaway he hid in to string them up and slowly burn them alive. When they finally stopped screaming it was taken as an indication that dinner was served.

Dogs, ghouls, mutants, humans, all disappeared only to have at most pieces left behind weeks later. Hands had been discovered with bite marks up the wrist, charred with jewellery that had been deformed and seared to their fingers.

Sometimes even pieces of metal with teeth marks on them appeared.

Now he was going to spend the rest of the evening thinking about Fiends and how he was going to fight them off after fifty of them surrounded him.

He threw himself at his bed.

The springs in it creaked loudly as it sagged down, Morgan's weight reminding it of its hated purpose.

His pillow was thin, barely more than a folded sheet, nowhere near enough to actually prop himself up with, and as he rolled around on the thin sheets, eventually settling on an uncomfortable sprawled position staring at the cracks in the ceiling, he let out a long sigh.

"So, Morgan. What better way to help the NCR make a difference than by making a difference in their name? Not until someone says 'jump' though, or get ready to have your face melted by General Wait-and-See!" he grumbled to whichever object in his room would listen.

"Fuck, I should be a hero. They didn't even have to ask and I solved their problems. Where's the hot chick hanging off my arm begging to be carried back here? For that matter, where's my comfy winner's bed?"

The whole situation was just wrong. Was that detour really so detrimental to the NCR's war effort? Quarry Junction was still a Deathclaw nest, which kept the road from being completely safe, but with the convicts in disarray and slowly falling apart it meant that Goodsprings and Primm would both be safe now.

Hell, Richard Morgan might have been the man responsible for saving both towns.

He started to feel cocky, then, before another thought arrived to dampen the fun.

The Courier had saved both from the powder gangers and rallied them against future attacks on his way down the Long 15.

He'd heard a little more about his exploits since arriving in McCarran. The NCR were hunting all over Vegas for him. At first they'd actively tried to kill him, orders from a source nobody would say that the troops on the Strip attempted to carry out despite supposedly being unable to carry guns openly in the heart of Vegas.

When the Courier had just up and vanished entirely, the NCR's aggression and numbers had been humiliated. A single courier had entered the Strip, murdered one of the most prominent men to live there, and then vanished without a single round being fired.

But far, far worse than that was what it had done to the political situation on the Strip. Two NCR troops had been killed for 'resisting' the Securitrons when they stepped in to enforce the laws of the Strip – no NCR personnel armed with firearms. Cattle prods were all they were afforded while policing the shiniest piece of asphalt in the Mojave.

House had been aggressive in his backlash, demanding that only the southernmost section of the Strip, where the NCR's embassy was located, be allowed to have NCR police walking in uniform.

Furious that they had not only clearly defied his laws against openly worn guns and attacked a third party with no prior warning, they had failed to prevent the murder of his most trusted Strip lord in the process, ultimately finding nothing to show for it. They had ignored his rules, and accomplished absolutely nothing beneficial for either party in their doing so.

More of the mechanical police rolled about the Strip than ever, it seemed, and House had demanded that the death sentence on the Courier's head be removed. He had argued all charges entirely be dropped, but the NCR were not so quick to budge.

The ultimate agreement reached was not a matter publicly available, even to a ranger. All orders so far were that if the Courier were found he was to be apprehended and brought to the nearest NCR outpost. Anything that happened beyond that point was known only to the bureaucrats and officers.

The NCR continued to search for him in the greater Vegas area to that end, but not many expected to find him if he wasn't noticed the night of his arrival in the Strip, and not many believed he was planning to go back anyway.

Richard had enjoyed being able to tell the story he'd heard directly from the Drifter the evening he'd spent at the outpost, and no doubt he'd tell it again.

It wouldn't be long before the stories were warped. The organisation of the Primm militia would turn into an honest military skirmish, and once it passed through the ears of someone with an imagination no doubt the young Damien would become a strapping young hero, the tribal woman with them a fierce she-beast who killed scores with her bare hands, and the new sheriff likely modelled on the reputation he'd earn in the coming months.

The Courier would probably be able to kill Cook-Cook. It couldn't be trickier than offing Benny, could it?

Now he was back to Fiends.

Pulling himself up and out of bed he decided it was time to go and see Cass. Maybe taking the piss out of her would make him feel better about his own situation. If rangers got beds like that, hers must have been a pile of hay and a bucket for a toilet.

Striding through the barracks, formerly a hotel built into the airport terminals, Morgan said little to the passing soldiers going about their business. They offered single-word greetings, and he returned them.

The look on his face prevented most from getting any further. A mixture of determination and apprehension, like a man about to willingly subject himself to something very unpleasant for goals he was not yet entirely sure about.

The independent barracks was an old plane hangar against the wall of the airfield, and as he neared it the Ranger realised he'd neglected to remove his uniform for something less conspicuous.

Music was coming from inside, and it became quickly apparent that someone had decided a good idea to keep morale up was to get drunk and have fun, and since it was far enough away from the terminal none of the killjoys like Oliver cared enough to shut it down.

A number of uniforms were obvious amongst the independent parties; some of the off-duty soldiers had decided that this was a better place to spend their time off than the terminal.

Ranger Richard Morgan was happy to join them.

He stepped through the open hangar doors and was promptly handed a bottle of beer by a man dressed in a ridiculous collection of metal organised into something loosely resembling armour.

Gratefully accepting it, the Ranger continued in and found himself looking at an assortment of people, various characters from the Vegas region who had collected here in the hanger for a gathering without much of an aim.

Looking around he saw the wide-brimmed hat of one Rose of Sharon Cassidy, and started striding her way.

"This was your idea," he said, pointing his finger at her.

"Look, dad, the caravan was dead, it was my job to put it down," she slurred, turning around and realising Morgan wasn't who she thought he was. "N'rr mind."

"Did you just call me 'dad'? I'm not that old, am I?" Morgan wondered, checking his hands for wrinkles.

"Hey, it's the guest of honna!" she said with a laugh. "The stupid fuck who blew up the powder ganger hideout!"

Several people nearby cheered and raised their vessels, grinning with both sincerity and intoxication.

"So what the hell?" Morgan said after the cheering had ceased and everyone had returned to their dancing.

"Now don't take this as me liking you at all, but I thought maybe you'd appreshate someone acken- akneldg- ankowlidging your success back at the prison. I know I was surprised to be alive," Cass said with a grin that was an attempt at being sly, but had trouble getting past childishly mischievous.

He paused for a moment as he realised just what was happening in the hangar. It was a party in honour of his victory over the powder gangers.

Morgan swelled with pride. It deflated back when he realised that this ragtag collection of characters appreciated what he had done more than General Oliver and the politicians who ran the NCR, and most of these people didn't even care about the NCR occupation so much as the money-making opportunities it afforded him.

It was a curious situation to find himself in. On one hand he had, in the eyes of somebody at least, managed to prove he could be a hero. On the other he was recognised officially as a troublemaker. If he died tomorrow NCR official history would know him as a loose cannon who disobeyed orders to destroy a potential strategic location for no benefit.

Cass noticed the turmoil in the Ranger's face. "Don't like the party? Well then it ain't f-you, jackass. Pretend itselebrates the… uh… fuck, what else do you guys have to celebrate these days?"

"That Courier guy from the Mojave Outpost killed Benny, one of the Strip lords?" Morgan offered.

"Fine. Fuck you, now we're celebrating that," Cass spat.

"I'm grateful. It just confuses me that you guys appreciate that plan more than my commanding officer," Morgan said, looking back towards the terminal.

Cass burst into laughter. "You came here expecting _glory_! What are you, sixteen!" she cackled. "You're part of the New California army!"

"I'm a ranger, dammit. We're supposed to carry respect," Morgan growled.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, Cass shook her head and continued laughing. "Morgan, this isn't an action movie. In real life, especially when it comes to the NCR, you've gotta deal with the politics. Hell, I know that, and I'm drunk off my face," she said, ironically one of the most coherent sentences she'd said since first seeing him.

"Well I wish it were," Morgan sighed. "Then I'd have a chance at the next mission."

"Ooh, where we going next? Heard ther's a sper mutant town up the mountin. NCR don't like sper mutants, could go all Vault Dweller on 'em. That make you feel like 'n action movie hero?"

"Yeah, it probably would. I'm going after one of the Fiend leaders."

Cass seemed to instantly become sober. "Shitballs, Morgan. Fuckin' shitballs."

Morgan nodded, before giving a small grin. "You did say 'we', right Cass?"

"…I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I fucking hate you."


	27. Wild Card: The Spy's Superiors

Another Wild Card this week, continuing our two horses (poor, extinct beings) in the Mojave for a little longer before we return to Zion for a bit of Jonesing and some revelations that probably aren't as intriguing if you've already read the story.

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><p><em><strong>Wild Card<strong>_

_**The Spy's Superiors**_

_XXX_

_XI_

_MMCCLXXXVIII_

Cottonwood Cove. A well-established forward base for the Legion on the western bank of the Colorado River, some distance south of Hoover Dam, the enormous gravestone of the NCR.

After the fall of Camp Searchlight, a settlement some distance west of the river, at the hands of the frumentarii of Caesar's Legion, forces were amassed and sent to secure the shores while the Bear remained in disarray over its loss.

There was no Legion blood spilt at Searchlight. The frumentarii did as they needed, utilised the tools available, and wiped the camp clean off the map as anything but a black mark, a 'do not enter' zone like any number of irradiated holes across America.

That victory had been one of many crushing defeats suffered in the wake of the humiliation caused by the Battle of Hoover Dam. The Bear's strength had suffered greatly in that first push, before either side knew what they were truly up against, but in the years following it the Legion had claimed territory and steadily needled the Bear's flank, bleeding it slowly and watching it kill itself faster for the confusion it seemed to willingly inflict upon itself.

Silvius had not been amongst the frumentarii that had destroyed Searchlight. Instead he had been in the West lands, learning of NCR politics and how to exploit them. The task proved impossibly simple. Some of the representatives of California's people would have gladly sold themselves out to the Legion for something as simple as currency, without even hiding it behind excuses.

The Scorpion found it difficult to imagine such a lack of devotion to the betterment of their nation. Such a lack of unity.

He passed down the road towards the settlement proper, a collection of houses clustered around an administration building for the doc that had been repurposed as the officer's quarters and war room.

Lining the road were the wooden crosses build from the Old World poles that lined many roads, the cables that previously ran between them used like ropes to bind those crucified upon them in place.

From some only skeletons were hanging, their wrists dangling in the ropes that bound them to the public prisons. Forms of those who had trespassed and transgressed in months and years prior, left to hang until the birds had devoured their flesh and a lifetime of agony later the last spark of their lives were quenched.

Some were still in the transition from living being to hanging skeleton, rotting remains serving as a brutal reminder to those who still had eyes to see the fate that would await them.

Very few managed to keep enough spirit within them to plead weakly for mercy, or at least make incoherent gasps as Silvius passed.

One, a scout captured some two weeks prior, had saved up enough energy and saliva to spit at the spy in a gesture of hatred and defiance.

It fell short, but the action itself was insult enough. Silvius paused and turned to the hanging man, a scout who had failed his duty.

"Have I shown you disrespect? Have I spit upon your family? You? Yet you spit at my feet as though I am the man responsible for your fate," he said, moving closer and looking at the hanging man.

He must not have been hanging there long, perhaps he was interrogated first, to have still retained so many of his senses, let alone his life after two weeks of capture. Yet still the signs of what had happened were evident. An open wound on his cheek was infected, a plague spreading across his face of some kind of disease, the same one that populated the scourge marks on his back. His hair had grown over his face and a beard had appeared where previously he had kept it trimmed.

Now he was a man at the edge of his life. Alive to die. He was using the time as an insult.

"Had you been more skilled, you would not have been captured. Had you been more brave, you would be dead and free instead of a rotting prisoner. Had you been more cunning, you might have even escaped. Your own actions lead you to where you hang now. Do not place blame where it does not belong," Silvius lectured.

The scout disagreed, managing to spit once more, this time, with Silvius closer, he did not miss.

The saliva splattered on his collar, and the spy glared into his dull eyes. "You want me to become angry. To kill you quickly for this insult. But at this point, leaving you to hang would be so much crueller, and if you intend on punishing me for your own failures, then I shall leave you to the Mojave. The next time you try that, all you will accomplish is to breath dust through your cracked, dying lips, barely able to see whether or not you were successful as the infection claims your sight and the rest of your existence is a dull flame in perpetual agony for days on end until finally, at last, the sweet embrace of death calms you."

The scout's ears worked fine, that was easy to see. His face reacted with horror, contorting without the ability to properly manipulate the muscles anymore, and he struggled against his crucifix for the last time in his life, feebly hoping to worm his way out of it and shatter his frail body against the road by slipping out.

"Another example to the Bear. Let them see you and know with even more certainty that they are doomed," Silvius said finally, wiping the spit from his collar and slapping it against its owner before turning and walking away, continuing his journey down the road.

Others would have reached Cottonwood before him, he did not doubt that, but the Scorpion was to report back there following the successful capture of Forlorn Hope in order to be briefed on his next task.

Coming into view of the courtyard it became apparent something important was happening. An entire centuria (ten contubernia, numbering eighty troops total) had assembled before the docks, standing still and staring out over the water. A boat was approaching.

He'd arrived in time to witness something special take place.

Standing at the head of the centuria was the man charged with holding and maintaining Cottonwood Cove, Aurelius of Phoenix, a centurion of Caesar.

To live long enough to be a centurion a legionary had not only to survive long enough to reach the rank, but also to exemplify themselves in combat and leadership by granting the Legion decisive victories.

The final task in becoming a centurion, the transition between decanus and centurion, was the forging of the armour. For a centurion, theirs was a life of exemplary battle, and it was shown in the armour they adorned; armour cobbled together and forged as a testament to foes slain, the greatest assets of each ripped away and claimed by the victor.

Aurelius' helm was crafted by hand, his own skills used in folding the metal to fit over his head, the plume that spread like a sun above his head fitted in place with his own knowledge of crafting it. A personal touch to a suit of armour otherwise built by the dead.

Aurelius of Phoenix was among the centurion who were especially proven, however. His right arm was clad in the incredibly strong metal of power armour, legendary battle wear from the Old World that could stop small arms fire like it was meaningless.

From the pauldron down Aurelius' arm was fitted with the metal, a piece of the chest plate painstakingly carved off and grafted onto the gauntlet to create a buckler.

Power armour was an entirely different form of armour altogether from standard battle vestments. In order to even walk into battle within it one required special training to compensate and move with the numerous pieces of technology in the suit. Because of such technology the Legion had ignored the value in it, but this had posed them little problem; the NCR did not provide the training either.

His leggings were made from the stone grieves of Raeus, chief of the Firewalkers, one of many tribes who had fallen to the Legion, in this case by Aurelius' own hand. When Raeus had opposed the idea of being assimilated into the Legion, Aurelius had stepped in and slain his own father, taking his armour and commanding his tribe to abandon the worship of the firebird in favour of their new god-king: Caesar.

Caesar had given him a new name that day, and he had abandoned his former with little care.

Among the entire Legion, he was one of the most powerful centurions. Yet now he stood at attention like a dog at the behest of its master. The man on the boat had to be at very least the rank of centurion.

Two vexillarius stood at the front of the boat as it sailed over the water, slaves working the oars. Standing between the two standard-bearers was a hulking individual. His head turned to look across the gathered troops and the sun caught the mask that was his face.

Silvius' breath caught in his throat.

The ship slowly arrived at the dock, bobbing on the water gently, moving back and forth on the waves.

The heavy clank of armour was the only sound but for the lapping of the water as the second most powerful man in the nation of Arizona stepped off the boat and onto the dock, approaching Aurelius of Phoenix, who promptly bowed his head.

"Legatus Lanius, it is an honour to be graced with your presence," he said clearly in a line he must have rehearsed a thousand times.

The Legate did not reply immediately. His face had long been hidden beneath the mask Caesar had crafted for him years prior, when he had taken up the role left empty by Joshua Graham, the Burned Man. A scowling and statuesque visage fashioned with a beard of metal that ended in spiked tips, horns curving forward from either side of the helmet into which the mask was slotted. A crest rose at its peak, decorated with a plume not unlike that of Aurelius.

"Aurelius of Phoenix. It has been long since last I met with you face to face," Lanius, the Monster of the East said finally, his strong voice echoed through the camp's silence, made metallic by the mask through which he spoke.

"Indeed, Legatus," Aurelius replied, utterly incapable of adding anything further to the exchange.

"You have done well, centurion," Lanius said, a high compliment indeed. "I have not come to replace you, nor to punish you for your failings."

"T-thank you, Legatus. I have done as best I can to carry out the will of Caesar," Aurelius stated, careful not to stumble over any more words.

"Things are progressing well; the West continued to bend and strain under the pressure we place on it. But more is needed, and I have come to break the will of the NCR," the Monster of the East said, metallic voice unchallenged to all but the father of the Legion himself.

Silvius had made his way into place beside the decanii at the foot of the dock, though with eight decanii he stood out noticeably.

Lanius' eyes, hidden beneath the mask, watching through two dark holes, turned and looked directly at the Scorpion, still dressed in his disguise, having not had time to change.

He recognised his rank and stepped forward. Aurelius promptly stepped aside, still unsure how to respond to his superior's words.

"Frumentarius, name yourself," Lanius demanded.

"Silvius, Legatus," the Scorpion provided quickly, standing alert and at attention.

The decanus he stood beside noticeably tensed as Lanius approached, his heavy armour clanking as he walked. Closer now and Silvius could see the handle of Lanius' famous weapon, the Blade of the East. A monster fitted to Lanius' size and ferocity, the blade was crafted from a metal unseen anywhere else in America, an ore retrieved by a frumentarius like Silvius, who claimed it came from a 'city of the dead'.

Months of smithing had been required to properly mould the weapon into shape, but the results had been a blade that ripped apart man, steel, stone, and everything else it had ever come into contact with like they were little more than paper.

"You are not dressed as one of the Legion, frumentarius. Explain yourself," he demanded.

Swallowing the small burst of panic, Silvius reminded himself that he had a perfectly good excuse. Somehow it didn't break the worry that Lanius would deem the excuse unworthy.

"I have only just returned, Legatus. I was the frumentarius at Forlorn Hope, infiltrating the ranks of the profligates in order to expose the camp's weaknesses and allow decanus Dead Sea to exploit them," Silvius explained.

"Indeed, and you did not think to remove the vestments of a profligate following the battle? Do you prefer to dress like them?" Lanius pressed, gesturing to the clothing Silvius wore – that of a spy.

"I adorned these clothes in order to reach my destination faster, Legatus. Had a detachment of the NCR found me alone, dressed like one of the Legion, they would have attacked me, perhaps even slain me. As I stand now, I pass undetected amongst them," the Scorpion justified.

Lanius considered the words, clearly unhappy with it. The thought was burning inside Silvius' mind, a threat far greater than ambush by the NCR.

"And if one of your brothers were to see you? You do not worry you will be slain for being one of the enemy?" the Legate continued, looking for a crack in Silvius' explanation to exploit.

"My disguise is that of a neutral party. They wish harm upon neither the Bear nor the Bull, whatever their individual opinions. I picked this party to infiltrate specifically because of this advantage, Legatus. It allows me the opportunity to travel amongst those of the Bear without being one of them or arousing suspicion."

"I disapprove of your methods, frumentarius. Nonetheless, Caesar believes Vulpes and his disciples essential to the Legion, so I will honour his wisdom. Conclude your business in Cottonwood Cove and work swiftly to bring about the downfall of our enemies," Lanius conceded, turning and walking towards the war room. "Aurelius, we shall discuss the changes to be made here while I am present and the tactics to be employed on the coming assault."

"Of course, Legatus," Aurelius said quickly, stepping to follow.

Lanius pulled the door open to the war room and walked inside, armour clanking the whole way, making his presence impossible to mask.

With the centurion and Legate gone the decanii turned and dismissed their men. Silvius, who had come to speak with Aurelius, was left waiting for the meeting to finish. After having the Legate's displeasure presented straight to him, Silvius did not relish the idea of intruding upon the meeting.

Better to be patient.

Instead he moved down towards the tents set up for legionaries, knowing that the discussion between the centurion Aurelius and the Legion's greatest military commander would take some time.

So, to keep himself occupied, he would pick out a spot by the river and look across it to his homeland, Arizona.

Sun bleached and harsh, he had no land he could otherwise call home, and how could he therefore care for any other? The grey cliffs rising high above the Diablo Scar, and the Splintered Fields where he'd first proven his worth. The first over the walls built by the Lynxes, and among those who stormed their shaman's tower.

A people who loved their defences, the Lynxes. Now they helped build Legion walls.

After that battle he was raised from veteran legionary to the ranks of frumentarii, and now here he was years later, working as he had then to bring down a tribe by walking alongside them.

He couldn't deny Lanius' distaste. A frumentarius was trained and experienced in manipulation and deceit, utilising indirect and clandestine tactics to obtain information and sabotage an enemy so that victory in direct combat was unattainable, at least not without heavy losses.

But deceit was part of warfare, and there was a deep elegance and skill involved in the art of a spy, one Silvius embraced completely.

As if in answer to his thoughts, his own direct superior appeared beside him, white hair starkly obvious when not covered or dyed in order to hide its obvious spectacle.

"Frumentarius," his dangerously smooth voice acknowledged.

"Vulpes Inculta," Silvius replied, climbing to his feet and standing at attention.

The fox was wearing the jacket, shirt and pants of a Vegas tourist today, a hat in his hand that, upon realising he still carried it, was disposed of, gifted to the wind.

"I understand you are here to speak with Aurelius of Phoenix about the success of your mission at Camp Forlorn Hope."

"Indeed. I am to make a full report and then await my next task," Silvius confirmed.

Vulpes decided that he had been standing straight long enough. "Relax, frumentarius. Take your seat, I believe I shall join you."

Silvius nodded, kneeling and then hesitating to wait for Vulpes to sit down first, before joining him and looking back at the river.

"You were to report to Aurelius of Phoenix, and yet you are here instead of doing that. Shall I assume you are avoiding the mistake of interrupting Legate Lanius?"

Silvius simply nodded, having no clear summary of words to reply.

"Lanius is a fearsome being, I will not deny. A monster born for battle if ever there was one, destined to kill until the day a monster even greater finally kills him," the Fox thought.

The Scorpion turned and looked at Vulpes. He had insinuated that Lanius could be killed. Obviously it was a possibility, however slim, but the thought was one discouraged among the Legion. "I…"

"Am not sure if I am testing your faith? Fear not, frumentarius. I know that Lanius' death in battle is nigh impossible. Mars knows no _human _could best him in single combat. Still, all living beings one day die, as shall be the case with you, or I, or Legate Lanius. Even the mighty Caesar is not immortal, though may he live many years of glorious victory," Vulpes countered quickly with a chuckle and grin.

"Why are you saying this?" Silvius wondered.

"I met a man recently. Information gathered claims that he has already died, yet awoke from the dead a short time later. Perhaps I should not speak as I am, but he intrigues me, this man who is both dead and alive," the Fox said, blue eyes staring into the water.

The Scorpion paused and thought. "This man, was he perhaps a courier?"

"Ah, you have heard of him too," Vulpes replied. "Not one of our own, but I saw a moment in him where he agreed with us, there in the flames of Nipton."

"Then it was the same man. Yes, I know him. We exchanged a few words on his journey to New Vegas, though he was not yet certain that was his destination when we met."

"Perhaps he could be brought to see our way of thinking. Made to understand the Legion's virtues," Vulpes suggested.

Silvius thought about the idea. "He could make for a powerful ally," he agreed.

"He's proven his skill already, slaying the head of one of the Vegas families at the heart of their empire. We could use ability like that to great effect in this war."

"Where is he now?"

"He left the Mojave following his victory. The NCR seem to believe they can hold him accountable for crimes they could never explain. Their attempt to scapegoat him has only served to make the tension in Vegas thicker, though. What alliances they believe they have show more cracks every day. And that is where you and I come in, frumentarius."

It seemed he would not be reporting to Aurelius of Phoenix after all. Vulpes Inculta, leader of the Legion's spies, would be the one to explain why Silvius had left Cottonwood Cove without needing to speak with its current centurion.

"What is it you wish me to do?"

"It is very simple. Go to Vegas, and accelerate the destruction of these fragile alliances. The NCR believes it may be able to exercise control over the slums of Freeside, but the locals are resistant. I would like you to keep that trend in place. In addition, Vegas' enigmatic king, House, has expressed a great deal of displeasure after the Courier's actions and the NCR's useless opposition. Anything that can tip the balance further would only serve to make our footing more sure."

"You are sending me to New Vegas, then?"

"Indeed. I believe you will have no trouble making your way in. I will provide you with a Strip passport, and you will do as you must to fit your role, even should the lead to a situation where you appear to oppose or work against Legion interests. This is a dangerous game you will play, frumentarius, but for the greater prosperity of the Legion it is exactly what you will do."

"Of course," Silvius said without a moment of disobedience. If he was to play the game of deceit once more then so be it. It was his life's purpose.

The river continued to flow before them as the two spies prepared for another round in the game they both played.

Deceit, reading faces, calculated gambles to knock your foes out of the game. Espionage, a game of poker in Vegas.

His eye dilates, you know he's vulnerable. The finger twitches, and he thinks he's running strong. He takes a stab in the dark, and the way he scratches his neck screams with discomfort. A discomfort taught to him because he has been told since his earliest days that lying is wrong, and he is disobeying those primal entities that governed and created him.

The bluff is called, and a lieutenant is cast from the military for raising accusations at one of his troops, an investigation turning up communication equipment tuned to a Legion frequency within his own equipment.

Silvius did not have the problem that was grow like crops in the West. The stigma that stunted the art of lying in them had never been instilled within Silvius. To be untruthful with Caesar and the blades he wielded was to bait death's hurried judgement. To be untruthful with a profligate – a sub-human with no sense of duty or unity – was no different to lying to a Brahmin.

Silvius did not have such signs of lying when faced with the people of the NCR. Their best readers of men would call him sincere, because that was his gift.

The gift of deceit and lies.

"Heed this, Silvius. I will be reporting to Caesar himself how you fare on this task. Your successes and failures will reach the ears of the son of Mars himself, and should you impress him with your skill, you may find yourself reaching new heights. But only should you prove yourself truly worthy. Mighty Caesar will accept nothing less than the best, do you understand?"

"Caesar is to hear of this?"

"Did I misspeak?"

"No, I am… surprised," Silvius admitted.

"There is potential within you," Vulpes said, looking at him. "Caesar has recognised that and wishes to see the fire of that potential burning brightly before he will add further coal to it."

"Very well."

This was a surprising day. Legate Lanius moving forward to Cottonwood Cove in order to push the Legion's presence forward, and Caesar himself taking interest in the Scorpion's next task: the severance of NCR's ties in Vegas.

Both men turned and walked back towards the camp itself, leaving the shores of the Colorado behind them for today.

Beyond that, waiting for their return, was the land both of them, and indeed all currently serving the Legion, had been born in. Arizona, safe and strong while its warriors marched on the new frontier, making their way west until finally they found the shores at the edge of the world.

Then their Legion would be an Empire.


	28. Yea, We Wept, When We Remembered Zion

Time to get back to Courier Six and his time in Zion. It's a new day dawning on Paradise.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Yea, We Wept, When We Remembered Zion<strong>_

_Date of Log: 29th November, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: 9th July 2275_

Life is a complicated series of events. Some of them are predictable, like growing older, making friends, falling in love for most people, though how and when that happens if they live that long is always a train wreck waiting to happen, whether it's a happy train wreck or not. Some of it's more complicated. Pissing off a major crime lord is not usually one of the things you expect.

Johnny Caps, ladies and gentlemen, was one of the people who expected it to happen, and then went ahead and expected he'd get out alive.

Never let it be said that Johnny was not a brave man. But bravery is equal parts courage and stupidity, in the end. It takes a courage to face your fears and a stupidity to ignore the danger that presents. There's something to be said for using your personal stupidity creatively and better yet to your advantage, but like all things there's a limit to how you do that.

Gambling is a term that applies to more than just poker and slot machines. Risk for reward, bluffs to psyche out the opponent, big money for big work that's gonna piss off the wrong people.

See, the Vicki and Vance casino has always been a pretty classy place, but the boss of it used to think himself quite a big bigger than his pants, and with the money he had in his pockets it didn't take long for a few people around town to start saying that he was every bit that big and more. When people disagreed, more money found its way into people's hands, and suddenly the people disagreeing showed up with bruises and cuts.

When he realised how easy it was to solve his problems _and _gain power with his money Ryan Gordon suddenly owned Primm, and everyone who agreed was immediately richer.

That was a few years before us coming to town after a bit of harassment on Highway 95, and by the time we were there Primm had actually developed its own underworld. Not a very big one, mind you. Mostly a case of big fish in little ponds, but we all saw the twinkle in Johnny's eye when he learned about Gordon's rise to the boss, and we knew we'd be in town for about a week before leaving in a hurry.

I remember the names of the two girls now. Sisters, Kayla and Emily. Don't really remember features though.

I'd been pretty happy to stick around. The Mojave Express was a courier service, and I'd run packages before, so I fancied signing up for some on-again off-again work. Just whenever I was in the region, it'd be easy enough to pick up a parcel and run it to where it needed to go.

The guy who ran it hadn't even looked up to say hello when I'd walked in asking. Just tapped a sheet of paper that requested a few details. Preferred routes, how often I'd be available, that kind of stuff.

Following that he'd slapped a designated number on me and away I'd walked an agent of the Mojave Express anytime I was in town the same time as a package.

Meanwhile Johnny had been scheming, and when I came back the damned junky nearly kissed me when I said I'd taken a job as a courier.

That evening we'd gotten to work.

Into the Vicki and Vance.

"Excuse me?" I asked the receptionist. "I've a package for Mr. Gordon? He asked for it to be delivered personally?"

She was a pretty woman, smiling politely. Still a good ten years older than me, mind. Not that age was ever a huge barrier in a world where you could be dead tomorrow whether you were twenty or fifty.

"I'll just check," she said, giving a beaming smile.

"I'd really rather not keep him waiting," I said with just the right amount of urgency. "One of my friends used to be a courier. Kept Mr. Gordon waiting on a delivery and he sent a couple of guys to break his legs. Said it was a lesson about time management."

She hesitated and turned back to me, her smile twitching. Gordon did not have a reputation for patience or second chances.

"Go right ahead," she said, gesturing to a door along the wall.

Typically, any casino run with some order removed a patron's weapons to avoid any unsavory scenarios breaking out over grudges or simple intoxication. They were then stored somewhere in the casino's back areas until the patron left again.

Alongside that, there was also the all-important back door, through which a party could walk without immediately having bouncers descend on them to remove their ordinance.

The weapon bank wasn't a worry then, we had to forfeit a few expendable guns to avoid looking too suspicious as we walked in, but Chance was waiting for his cue, one that I'd provide.

In the meantime Johnny and Alyssa were working a separate angle: cheating at poker. The cheeky bugger had learned how to count cards, and now he was putting it to good use by trying, rather noticeably, to cheat the casino out of as much money as possible. They'd started a few hours ago, hoping they'd piss the casino off enough by the time we were in action that it'd work to great effect.

The corridors at the back of the casino were simple to navigate; one way lead up the stairs to the more important rooms like Gordon's office and the vault, and by going the other way I was heading past the door that lead out into the cashier's station and straight for the back door, guarded by one man standing bored in the dimly flickering light pouring down from the failing light above his head.

"Excuse me?" I asked as I approached him.

He turned, something finally happening in his world, and straightened, eyes attempting to widen to show he was still awake.

"I'm a courier, was just hoping I could get a few directions for the delivery."

"Turn around for one. This is the staff entrance," the guard said flatly.

Feigning ignorance, I continued walking. "So this is the way in to give the package to Mr. Gordon?" I asked.

"What? No, this is the way out," the guard replied.

"But I want to go in."

"Then turn around and go down the hallway the other way. His office is up the stairs, has the big golden star on the door."

"Oh, thanks. Hey, I'll mention your name, say you were real helpful. Maybe he'll promote you up from this boring job at the door," I offered, holding a hand out to shake his.

He studied it critically and then looked up at me. "Look, fuck off, alright? If I get seen sitting around talking to you somebody is going to have my head, and I'll take boring door guarding over the stairs any day. I don't even know if you're supposed to be back here, so give me some plausible deniability and get lost."

"I'm not," I admitted. "I'm actually pulling a heist."

He went for his gun, but the knife slipped up my sleeve, and my hand was already moments away from him. A simple switchblade, but it doesn't really matter what it is when it gets jammed through your windpipe, now does it?

He fell backwards, the last thing he managed to do was catch himself on the door handle, his weight yanking it down as he messily descended into death. The door opened outwards, and a corpse dropped into the back alley.

Two more guards were standing out in the cold, either side of the now open door. Both went for their guns like the first, but before one could even manage his cheek exploded and he collapsed to the ground with a hole in the back of his head. The other hesitated, and a second silenced sniper rifle fired, ripping apart his neck.

The sniper sisters: Kayla and Emily. Kinda sexy in a femme fatale kinda way, actually.

Chance strolled down the alley, collecting the guns from the fallen guards and adding them to his own stockpile.

He handed me my gun, dad's revolver, and continued on down the hallway without another word.

We made our way towards the stairs, stopping at the corner and pausing for a breather.

It wasn't the stealthiest heist in the world. In fact I'm not even sure it could have been clearly defined as an actual heist so much as a smash-and-grab, but I don't suppose it matters in the end.

Chance produced a weapon more suited to what we were doing though; a semi-automatic, silenced at that. The Khan armory is a beautiful thing if you're a fan of bullets and objects that shoot bullets.

I took it with a grin, stowing the revolver in its place on my belt, before we both doubled back down the hallway. Johnny's signal wasn't elegant, but it was certainly audible, and that's what we were aiming for.

"YOU FUCKING WANKERS! COME ON THEN, LET'S GO SEE MR. FANCY-PANTS GORDON! CALLING ME A CHEATER, I'LL HAVE YOUR HEADS!"

The door was violently pushed open as two men dragged Johnny, noticeably struggling, towards the stairs. Another followed a moment later pulling Alyssa by the arm.

I resisted the temptation to shoot him.

The entire group disappeared up the staircase, and we promptly moved to follow, keeping far enough behind that nobody looked back and saw us. With Johnny struggling like an animal in a trap though, not many people were looking elsewhere.

No guards at the top of the stairs, so we wandered up unhindered in time to see the door with the golden star shut and two guards take standing positions either side. Neither of them had been among the group going upstairs, so these two must have been actual door guards.

Chance surprised me even further with his choice of silenced weapon. A crossbow bolt whistled through the air and blasted through one of the door guard's faces. He collapsed as it slammed into the wall behind him, the thud unnoticed in the other room thanks to Johnny's continued shouting.

The other guard's surprise and horror proved that he'd never really been in a situation where he was actually killing to survive. He was another of the thugs that got his kicks beating the weaker members of society, but was spooked the moment anyone started bleeding.

He was the one bleeding after a moment more as the machine gun peppered bullets across him.

Johnny's shouting in the other room stopped a few seconds later, cut off abruptly with a yelp. Chance and I exchanged glances and then made our way for the door, taking care to check for anything else in the hallway as we went, but finding nobody.

Gordon's 'mob boss' status looked like an absolute joke.

We both took another breather at the door to Gordon's office and then kicked it open.

Ryan Gordon was a fairly young man who refused to shave and loved the Old World business suit he wore a little too much for the comfort of anyone else around him.

Chance flicked a pair of handguns towards Johnny and Alyssa, who snatched them out of the air while I gunned down two of the five men in the room. Chance was quick to bring his crossbow back into his hand, pointing it straight at the head of one man and daring him to pretend to pull the trigger.

Chance and Johnny both took care of the two men either side of Gordon, both of whom had been aiming weapons at me as I killed their comrades.

Mr. Gordon himself, for all the underworld he wished he was, chose to gracefully duck under the desk and avoid any stray bullets while his men dropped like flies around him.

The last man looked over at Gordon's desk, attempting to divert Chance's attention. When it failed he went for broke, and a crossbow bolt slammed through his brain.

"That was disappointing," Chance sighed.

"I like it when there's no problems," I pointed out.

"I dunno, it just isn't as much fun. There's no real thrill when it's all executed perfectly. It's like actually doing a job," he replied with another sigh, reloading his crossbow.

"All things in moderation, gents," Johnny said with a cocky smile, twirling his gun on his finger. "Some go wonky, some are straight. Kinda like women, not all of them are exciting. Some just wanna lie on their backs and make you do all the work, know what I mean? But then there are the ones-"

"Who the hell are you people?" Gordon whimpered from under his desk.

None of us were wearing uniforms, of course. That would have been a little too stupid.

"Oi!" Johnny barked, firing a round into the wood of the desk, taking care to aim away from where he knew Gordon actually was. "I was not done talking, thanks."

"I think you were," Alyssa sighed, moving over and sitting on the desk, tapping it and giggling when even that caused Gordon to let out a panicked yelp.

Johnny paused thoughtfully, contemplating something deep. "Actually, which are you, Alyssa? You take control sometimes, or do you expect him to do it all for you? I always wondered what kind of stuff you were into."

Or not.

"Keep wondering," Alyssa sighed, flipping him off.

"What about the sisters? Nothing hotter than two girls nice and keen for it at the same time, right?"

I shot Johnny a look. "We're getting off track, Johnny."

"Oh, right!" the cocky Khan said, brought back from his red-light train of thought. He kicked the desk and pointed his gun at Gordon when he skittered out like a bug whose hiding place had been disturbed.

"You and me have a few things to go over before we go home tonight," Johnny said with a huge, beaming smile.

"Do you know who I am?" Gordon managed to say with some degree of ferocity submerged under thick fear.

"Ooh, ooh, a silly little prick who has lots of money, and therefore thinks he's got all the power and respect in the world?" Johnny guessed.

"You know I grew up on stories about how men like you ended the world," I spat, looking at the sorry excuse for a man.

"Y-you wouldn't be saying all this if you knew!" Gordon said.

"Knew what, that you were going to limp for the rest of your life?" Johnny wondered, tilting his head.

"What? I'm-argh!" Gordon screeched as Johnny cut him off with a bullet in the leg.

"Shut up for a second, 'cuz I'm talking now," he said politely. "See, you got status with money, and then you started bullying people with that money and status. You seemed to think that ever since you came to own this piece of piss casino you've been a big man with big pants. Well I got news, Gordon my chum. Your dick is not Primm-sized. It ain't even Goodsprings-sized. You know what? It ain't even there at all."

And with that Johnny proceeded to plant a bullet in the most painful place he could find.

"Fuck, Johnny, we were supposed to get him to get us into the vault," Chance pointed out as Gordon passed out.

"Oh. Whoops."

Alyssa slipped over the desk and started searching through it, hoping to find something to help her get into the stash.

"We can't sit around here hoping that works. Someone's gonna notice the dead bodies outside eventually, and I'd prefer not to get caught in here when it happens," I said.

"You just don't like it when the plan has kinks, that's your problem," Johnny said. He laughed and realised he'd added to his previous line of thought.

"Oh shit," Alyssa breathed. "If we're getting the money we need to get it and go. Quickly."

"Why?" we asked in unison.

She slapped several pieces of paper on the table. NCR stamped forms for funding transfers, and receipts for goods. The name on them was not 'Ryan Gordon' though, as was scratched into the little golden plate on the desk, but something considerably more menacing. A name that made Gordon- well, Ryan's terrified claims carry a lot more weight.

'Ryan van Graff.'

"Oh shit," Johnny, Chance and I all exclaimed at the same time as we realised we'd just neutered a member of one of the most ruthless and notorious crime families in the entire known world.

_~ 2255 ~_

_Caesar establishes the capital of the Legion in the ruins of the former city of Flagstaff, Arizona._

Courier Six awoke, his mind swimming with dreams through which he glimpsed his past.

He was lying on a bed of leaves that did little to change the feeling of the stone beneath it. A blanket was tossed over him, and as feelings began to appear throughout his body he pulled it down, noticing his leather armour had been pulled off in order to bandage the bullet wound he'd earned earlier.

How much earlier? He had no way of telling. He felt as if he'd slept for some time, though, and it felt like he might have missed a day.

He pulled himself up into a sitting position, noting that he was still wearing the large piece of technology on his arm, and examined his surroundings, noting immediately that he was in a cave. The last embers burned feebly in a fire pit a short way from him, and crevices in the ceiling filtered light and water in. The water had collected in pools immediately around him, and upon seeing it his body realised how long it had been since he last had anything to drink. Someone had left small cups made of clay to collect water as it flowed down through the ceiling, and all of them were fill to overflowing.

Suddenly he had tunnel vision, moving straight for the water and gulping as much of it down as possible, going through three cups and sighing happily as his body gratefully took the hydration.

The rest of the cavern came back into view as his priorities were allowed to acknowledge more than sustenance again.

He was in a small cavern that seemed to connect a larger one through a passage too small to walk through standing at his full height.

Touch had returned to him by now. Taste too, if the water was any indication. Sight, clearly. Hearing ought to have, though the place seemed to be silent so far. Smell was the last to properly return, and it immediately forced a shift in his confusion.

He could smell death.

Turning back to his bed he realised where he had been lying. His 'bed' was at the left side of a row of similar resting places. And for all the other occupants they were exactly that; resting places. Five or six bodies had been lying beside the Courier as he slept. Sorrows, all of them.

He was sleeping in a tomb.

The realisation gave him chills. Immediately he looked around for his clothing and items, but found nothing. His two guns were still held either side of his belt, but his rifle and machete had come off with his armour. He could survive with the two pistols, but he did not like to rely on them as his only means of defence, especially without any substantial amount of precious ammunition.

He took stock of the situation. Where was he? He'd been fighting White Legs, he'd taken a bullet to the gut, which now seemed to have been removed, cleaned, and bandaged, meaning someone must have been around to carry him off the battlefield and clean him up. So someone had survived the assault, obviously.

Now he was lying in a cavern with a number of corpses, which by the smell of things had been dead for some time already. So then where had he ended up? How?

He ducked into the passage and followed it into the larger cavern beyond, his eyes sweeping for signs of life or his equipment.

He saw neither.

"Hello? Pale Omen? Waking Cloud? Anybody there?"

A large formation of stone rose up in the middle of the room, sloped like a ramp and bridged with planks of wood across to a ledge that wound around the wall it jutted out from. The cavern was filled with plants, weeds winding their way up the stone and sprouting in bushes of flora across the dirt beneath the Courier's feet.

Another passage wound away into darkness a short way to his right, while thanks to the dim light in coming through the cave's ceiling he could see another way along the ledge reached by ascending the stone.

Deciding to try going upwards, the Wanderer pulled himself up onto the stone, wobbling on the uneven surface and kneeling to steady himself. He wasn't going to be back in perfect condition straight away.

Making his way up slowly, he crossed the makeshift wooden bridge and heard a hiss from somewhere in the cave.

Just what he needed. Something dangerous before he'd fully recovered. He immediately shoved the thought that the others in the cave might have run afoul of something terrible, or that they might have been captured by the White Legs, out of his mind.

Had they thought him dead, then?

It wouldn't be the first time someone had placed him down there with the dead only to be incorrect. But there he was, alone.

Where was I? All in good time, little one. Clearly I was not among the dead in that makeshift crypt of the Sorrows, nor was I there to greet the Courier when he awoke, but I was alive too, and very busy.

A member of the Dead Horses was lying on the ground before a wooden door that blocked the way a few short minutes down the tunnel at the top of the cave. It was easy to see that he was dead, and the burns on his hand indicated that the wooden door was trapped.

Unfortunate for the tribal, but for Courier Six it served as a vital warning. The Wanderer was still waking up, and it would have been all too easy to make a simple mistake like that and be killed by the electric handle.

Looking closer he saw that the handle of the door was metal, but it didn't seem to be live as the Dead Horse's hand suggested. Hesitantly placing a hand on the wooden door, he leaned against it and let out a sigh. He had expended more energy than he thought just to reach where he was now, and he would probably need to rest again if he could not locate any of the miracle serum contained within a stimpak syringe.

Not quite sure what to do about the metal door, the Courier opted for a different approach. Reaching down he took the Dead Horse's war club in his hand, testing how it felt to wield, and then hefted the weapon into the door.

It cracked into the wood with a loud 'thunk' and hung there for a moment before dislodging from the chipped hole in the wood and falling to the ground.

Picking it up once more, the Courier kept it in hand for the next strike, splintering a little more of the wood. It had been used to block the entire tunnel, a solid wall with the door fashioned in the middle. Someone did not want anyone getting through.

He spent a long time slowly splintering at the wood, cracking through the door, first enough to peer through, and then enough to get a good look at the other side.

The door handle, he discovered, was hooked to a battery. It was surprising to find that it still worked, partly because it had not been on the whole time, though how many years exactly it had been sitting there could not be certain. Plants had started growing over it but never truly gotten hold, giving no real indication aside from 'a long time'.

Cables ran to the door handle, activated when it was pulled outward in order to open. A good trap, one that would have claimed another had one man's death not been another's fortune.

Pulling that gun his father had passed down to the Courier from its holster, he reached through the hole in the door he had created and fire two shots before removing his arm and peering through.

The first shot had been successful, blasting into the battery and destroying its ability to supply electricity to the metal door handle.

Taking a deep sigh in case his blunt method of solving the problem had no worked, the Courier reached down and pulled on the handle. It clicked, and for a moment the Courier's arm jolted, but that was nerves, and not electricity. A far more benevolent reason to twitch.

He pulled the door open, and stepped on into the tunnel beyond.

Oh… yes? Ah, where are my manners. The battery trap works because metal, like those in guns and the bullets they fire, or many objects from the Time Before, is extremely conductive. This means electricity travels through it with far less obstruction than something more natural, like dirt or wood. So if you touch a piece of metal when electricity is running through it, the electricity might flow into you.

This can be a very bad thing, as the trap is a testament to. I do not know the specifics, but if electricity cannot flow in a line, it does some terrible things to the poor body it's surging through. Think of it like a river of flowing water. If you dam the river, the water begins to rise until it overflows, and this causes negative consequences to both the life in the river and the life nearby.

It's not exactly like that, but it is enough of an explanation, for now.

Anyway, the Drifter continued making his way on into the tunnel, making his way through the darkness towards a place no living thing had touched in many years. His Pip-Boy, the great machine on his wrist, provided a dim light that he, after some time, worked out how to amplify, shining a pale light through the cavern as he continued on into the darkness.

It worked to great effect, as more than once the Drifter sidestepped a rusted bear trap, too sensible to risk finding out the rust did not stop them snapping closed on his leg. Brutish means of trapping animals, but Yao Guai are dangerous beasts, and no doubt they were in the Time Before as well.

Finally he reached an open cavern, this one a yawning chasm over an underground river, rushing water audible far below, but not visible through the darkness.

Stretching across the divide was an old rope bridge, the kind of thing stories used to involve, with a daring adventurer and a bridge sure to break.

Sometimes reality and fiction are not such distant friends, as Courier Six now stood, looking at the dangerous bridge and wondering if perhaps turning around and going back the way he had come might have been the smarter plan, instead of risking his life to make his way over the rushing waters below.

He never told me exactly what he said as he placed his first foot on the bridge, but given how the retelling went, it was probably one of those words 'civilised' people are so happy with.

The bridge creaked worryingly, and with a deep breath the Courier placed his second foot on it.

Slowly he began to inch across it, not lifting his feet but instead sliding them along the wood. The action reduced the strain on the bridge, but the constant creaking still made it clear that the wood was not going to hold up forever.

Not about to chance anything, the Wanderer started moving faster, his mind whirring over whether moving quicker would strain the bridge more, or whether slowly would not get him across fast enough.

He slid one leg forward and made the mistake of having both on the same piece of wood for the barest moment, and it gave way. One leg dropped through the gap created as pieces of wood hurtled down into the darkness below, not even making a sound over the rushing water.

The other quickly relocated to the plank in front of it, which quickly groaned and began to give way as well.

No more time to waste, the man bolted, his feet shattering the wood underneath him and shaking the bridge. His hands firmly on the ropes, he kept himself up despite how often his feet slipped through gaps he had created, but as he neared the other side the rope holding one side of the bridge steady snapped.

The entire structure tilted, and the Drifter quickly went from running to holding on for his life as the bridge twisted around, just about throwing him off.

Gripping the rope tightly, he paused and took a deep breath, evaluating his situation. One wrong move would be his death.

As if on cue, he felt a dull pain growing in his abdomen. Immediately he could tell that his wound had begun bleeding, probably because of the sudden tensing of his muscles and the stress of the situation.

He pulled himself along the rope a little further, hoping to reach the edge before something else devastated his chances of surviving what he was now lamenting as a bad idea, thinking that perhaps merely taking the other exit to the cavern would have served him far better.

The rope was audibly straining, and the Courier decided he was either going to live or die. Putting his stock in a leap, he pushed of one of the remaining planks to wood, pulling himself along the rope and throwing himself through the air.

In his injured state he did not account for what the lack of his weight would do to the physics of the bridge, and was promptly smacked in the face by one of the bridges planks. The rest of them shattered as his body struck them and in a wild moment of desperation his hand latched onto one of the few remaining ropes of the bridge, all of which snapped under the force.

His other hand in front of him, the Drifter was reminded of another merit to the Pip-Boy 3000: their incredible durability.

His arm slammed into the rock face, and where it might have broken something had he not been wearing the enormous device, it instead crashed into it with a metallic clang, leaving the wrist it encased perfectly fine.

The rest of Courier Six did not fair as well, but the moment without pain his hand was afforded saved his life, leaving him with enough coordination to grasp one of the wooden bridge struts as the bridge disintegrated around him.

Feeling his remaining energy slipping from him, the Courier put the last of his strength into pulling himself up the ledge and forcing himself over it, panting in exhaustion and primal fear of his own demise.

Dragging himself away from the edge and wincing at the bleeding of his wound, the Courier rested, albeit uncomfortably, against the stone wall of the tunnel as it led even deeper into the catacombs beneath Zion.

He fell unconscious almost immediately.

_The Journal of Odysseus_

_That was the first meeting, though it was no meeting at all._

_Alone there in those dark tunnels, I would have believed that I had really died in defence of Zion, and that these passages, traps and my bleeding wound were all crazed metaphors in some world suspended between life and death._

_The passages a metaphor for the roads I had travelled, dark and twisting like the corridors of memory. The traps the many things from time gone rising again to attack me, wear upon my mind and drag me away from rest. Guilt. My wound the time slowly ticking away until everything caught up with me._

_Perhaps they still are metaphors now, even though I know I had not died then._

_But regardless of what I was, it was not long before the shadows gathered._

_From the darkness of the tunnels, the darkness in the corners of my eyes, the shroud in my mind, rushing water lending its furious breath to nonexistent lungs._

_I believed I had woken, eyes opening to reveal an ally found me amidst the labyrinth 'neath paradise. Nothing so hopeful._

"_You could stay here, fall asleep and let it all disappear."_

_Cold words, not an option, a suggestion. Not consoling, but sharp and merciless._

"_You've walked in those shoes long enough. You have no right to continue."_

_Words that didn't make sense, spoken clear as day without tone or volume. I raised an objection, but nothing burbled from my throat. I had no voice. Lying there, wounded and flickering between realms, I had nothing. Nothing except those precious few memories._

"_Disgusting. You think you're going back for her? For answers?"_

_Glass. Needles. Knives jabbed at me through words that nothing said. Accusations no one threw that still burned like flame._

_But that was why I was going back. I would not remain in Zion for eternity, alive or dead. I had to return, in time, and claim the shattered remnants of who I was._

_That seemed to cause the most irritation. An eclipse on my mind blazed with pain._

"_Images from a stolen life. You are a non-entity. A parasite manipulating the limbs. Die here, and let the poison be cleansed."_

_Parasite. Is that what I am? My existence, is it life, or is it death?_

"_An abomination walking. A phantom with no place upon this earth."_

_Faces appeared through mist, people I once knew. People I had remembered then. All snatched away as quickly as they came, but each gave a little more strength._

_That reminded me that I still had things to do. No, not reminded so much… reinforced. People to find, answers to receive. Uncover. Whichever was necessary._

_My future was my past. My past was my future._

_Ouroboros, the serpent that devours its own tail._

_That was the first meeting, though it was no meeting at all._

When the Courier finally awoke again, some time had passed. His wound had stopped bleeding again, but he could tell it had affected him. He would never say exactly, but he mentioned a strange dream, more like a hallucination that he had while unconscious.

Pulling himself to his feet he began to walk once again and eventually found himself looking at another wooden door.

The Dead Horse club was in his belt, and he promptly withdrew it and slammed it into the wood, not caring to try the hand. The wood came away with a little effort, and he quickly checked the other side.

This one was not hooked up to a battery, but instead a wooden shelf held a shotgun in place, duct taped onto a makeshift handle with a piece of string wound around the trigger, running down to a pulley that then wrapped around something at the base of the door.

Opening it would set the shotgun off and probably eliminate anyone who thought they could step through the doorway.

Kneeling down to the corner of the door the string was attached to, he swung the club into it, breaking the corner of the door and leaving the string slack, making it possible to open the door outwards without pulling the trigger. He took the shotgun, now disabled, as he passed through.

Stepping in, the Courier found himself in another open cavern, this one two rays of sun. One through a narrow crevice in the ceiling above a pool of water. The other flowed through from an exit to the cave, a short passage leading out to the brilliant light on the other side.

But while the water was important to the Courier, and his first instinct was again to go and drink his fill, he stayed still, eyes gazing around the rest of the area.

An ancient computer was still working, sitting up against the pillar of stone in the middle of the cave, with batteries sitting around it in a disorganised fashion. They'd been jury rigged to function together and it seemed some of them were supposed to recharge after running out.

A bed, consisting of an actual mattress with old, ratty blankets, had been created, build from wood and set in one corner of the cave. Picture frames sat atop a nearby dresser, the pictures inside them distorted and impossible to distinguish. There was a table sitting not far from the computer terminal, clearly handmade, as were the three chairs around it, one of them knocked on its side. Sitting on top of it was a host of empty bottles, mostly whiskey, but vodka, scotch, beer, and wine as well were all present, as well as non-alcoholics like sarsaparilla and nuka cola.

It was a dwelling. A genuine dwelling. A collection of rifles for its defence lay atop the mattress, and a book shelf, again handmade, had been constructed to house more books than it could contain the Courier found, making his way around the room.

There was more, all over. Handmade objects, almost all of them. Dolls whittled from wood, crude figures painstakingly made from stone, a stockpile of bear traps, tripwire and more.

Making his way through the cavern, the Courier forgot both his thirst and his desire to leave the cave in his interest.

Finally, after looking over the collection of weapons and browsing the book case, finding a number of interesting books, some of which were vaguely familiar but made his head hurt trying to remember, he made his way over to the small pool.

It had been carved from the stone, hewn over what must have been years until it was deep enough to submerge a person's head. The water was stagnant, and after a few mouthfuls the Courier spat it out. He noticed that whoever had taken up resistance in the cave had cut a small hole in the stone which they had then covered with something similar to an elongated vice.

A vice, for those who don't understand, is something used for holding things in place. Usually they have things that are turned to loosen or tighten them. Frequently used in construction, as I understand it. In this case it was used to put pressure over the hole so that no water escaped around the sides, and the owner had located some rubber and used that on the end that blocked the hole to keep it sealed.

Finding the knob on it, the Drifter curiously twisted it, and with some resistance the vice gave way, letting the water run along a tiny aqueduct towards the mouth of the cave.

It never made it all the way; pieces of the makeshift water disposal system had long since fallen apart, leaving the water to pool on the ground. Sensibly, nothing else was close to where the water began to flow over the floor.

The resident must have had their water disposal fail before, or had the sense to know it likely would fall apart.

Finally, he let his interest wander to the computer terminal. Courier Six was no wizard with the Old World technology, but he could operate it, and after a few moments searching he found the button that turned the machine on.

Miraculously, the machine burst into life, whirring and making other loud noises as it spluttered into life. It was a simple thing, he learned quickly.

I myself have never been very good with those old things. They didn't mean anything to me, and even now I can accomplish little more than turning them on and hoping for the best when I start pressing buttons. The Courier managed a little more.

The Pip-Boy on his arm proved its use again though, being able to plug in to the computer and interface with it. Before knowing exactly what he was doing Courier Six had downloaded an entire archive of journal entries.

He struggled with it for a little longer, but could accomplish little more than he already had. It seemed there wasn't much else on the computer to interact with.

Content to go through the journal entries located on his wrist, the Courier sat down on the mattress and spent some time fiddling with the device on his wrist until he could find the earliest dated log and start from the beginning.

He waited in that cavern for some time, going over the information he found, his eyes widening on paragraphs and narrowing at others, the knowledge giving him new viewpoints on Zion.

When finally he paced along the entrance to the cave and his eyes adjusted to the light outside he could see he was high up, a ledge otherwise inaccessible from anywhere below. He hadn't noticed himself ascending, but apparently he'd been steadily going up as he made his way through the cave.

It was bright and sunny; the skies above clear, letting the light bathe Zion with warmth.

He didn't quite know where he was, but he quickly set about finding a way down the rock face. I'm not sure exactly how he did it, and he didn't care to tell me either. He said he didn't think anybody needed to go up there, and with the bridge in the cavern broken, the cave was inaccessible to anybody but Courier Six.

Which is exactly the way he wanted it.


	29. Restore Our Fortunes

__And here we're coming into the ramp-up to our arc climax. Hope you guys like this one, I had quite a bit of fun writing it.

Gufetto, it could be one, or it could be the other. Certainly can't go and comment, or it'd ruin the surprise. Maybe it's a little of both?

As a side note, I've been feeling pretty sick this week. As a result I'm a little behind. I'll try and get back on track, but the season finale might be a little late as a result, since I plan to make it, like the finale to The Fool, considerably longer than the average chapter, and that means twice the work in the same amount of time. When you've been knocked on your ass by nausea attacks over the course of a week that sometimes causes disruptions in your schedule.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Restore Our Fortunes<strong>_

The Narrows were empty when the Courier reached them, not a single word spoken aloud since he awoke in the tomb.

Despite that his mind was on fire, blazing with newfound determination and resolution. The archive in the cave had told the story of a man who had come to Zion long before, and his story had meant much to the place, and its people.

To this day, I have never learned the stories that were supposedly told. The Courier safeguarded them well, carrying them as a silent burden, a history that he alone would know, kept alive but hidden for reasons I do not understand.

All history waits on the road to be uncovered once lost, but some memories of time are not meant to be shared with all.

He made his way through the waters that once ran freely through the home of the Sorrows. Now chunks of stone had been thrown loose in explosions, blocking passages and leaving only small cracks for the rivers to trickle through.

Bullets had buried themselves in stone and made lines across the walls, shattering the tribal drawings that had been scratched there in years prior.

All of that was dwarfed by the sheer amount of bodies, though. The pale forms of the White Legs with arrows protruding from their bodies as they lay facedown in the streams lay alongside Dead Horses, marking the point in the battle where reinforcements had arrived.

Despite their support, the White Legs had already entrenched themselves in the Narrows, slowly flooding back.

As he journeyed deeper in he found the Sorrows in scores. One of the women who had tended Follows-Chalk had been captured. It seemed they decided against keeping her captive, though; her naked form was slumped, a thick trail of dried blood from her head up to the bloody flower painted on the wall when the White Legs were done with her.

Further in he found a collection of children. Three in a heap, each with a bullet in their heads, and one young man with a gun clutched tightly in his hand, which in his terror he had attempted to use against the White Legs, only to have them turn his weak-kneed attempt at courage twisted into something horrible; the gun in his hand had fired five times, and the bullets matched those in his friends.

Daniel's cavern was not far now. For whatever reason he was still travelling towards it.

A man impaled on a totem.

Just a few turns.

A group of five, two men and three women. An empty gun dropped between them, a revolver with a single round left when once there were five.

The sound of the waterfall flowing steadily dispelled the quiet. A rushing white noise that struggled with all its natural might against the crushing silence.

A last stand. Or a distraction, perhaps.

The remains of tents had been piled together, wood and cloth trying futilely to hold off an onslaught of bullets. The White Legs had attacked in force, and been repelled for a long time. The number of the dead in that single choke point was staggering, forms lying strewn about so much that the Courier was picking his steps carefully to avoid trampling any of the fallen, friend or foe.

They'd been overrun at the end, their defence only keeping them safe for so long. One of the barricades was splintered, an exploded grenade tearing it to pieces, leaving only enormous splinters that would never hide a person's form.

The Sorrows who had held out against the attack lay on the other side. No funeral had been given. No respect had been afforded to the dead. The victors had trampled their forms down into the ground, beaten those who had managed to cling to life despite injury. Blood splattered the stone walls around their forms, wantonly sprayed across any surface before the bodies no longer had any to give.

I realise my descriptions are vivid and painful to hear, and I acknowledge that some of the younger ones privy to this tale may be shocked, but I will not spare you the truth in the name of comfort.

Decisions are to be made in these trying times, and I refuse to allow those decisions be made without first hearing the truth of war, and of what befell the Sorrows in that assault.

The White Legs came, killed, and left, poisoning the waters with the dead, and leaving the Narrows to be a place of silence.

The waterfall's rushing was loud as the Courier made his way behind it, the warm sun shining dissonantly on his bare back before he ducked into the shadows.

No words were said through that journey. The man's mouth never even opened.

The cavern beyond had been ransacked. What little Daniel had left behind had been tossed around and thrown through the cavern, anything of consequence taken, either by the retreating Sorrows, or by the White Legs in their victory.

He hadn't really expected to find anything. It was just the first place his feet had taken him in order to determine where he would move next.

The Dead Horses camp on the east river was an obvious road to take. It would have been logical to go there first; being quite certain he would find someone still there.

Logic did not have much to do with what was going on in Zion anymore. It was a storm of irrationality, raw emotions pulling hair triggers, violently ending the lives of so many who did not deserve it.

When finally he'd had enough standing in the darkness of the cave, absorbing the events that had transpired around him before his lapse in consciousness, layered above the events that had transpired over a century prior, he turned and made his way back out into the Narrows.

"The death of innocence. A powerful and tragic thing to see, isn't it?"

Joshua Graham was standing amidst the fallen Sorrows, waiting for the Courier. He said nothing, making his way towards the Burned Man with silent questions.

"Much has happened since you last joined us in the world of the waking. It seems the good Lord still has a purpose for you yet, to keep you from joining him."

They both began walking back through the stone corridors of the Sorrows' home. For a long time the only sound was the splashing of the shallow water as they walked and the fading sounds of the waterfall. Daniel's waterfall. The Sorrows' waterfall.

"We saved them. The White Legs were upon us, but Daniel and I were able to push them back long enough for many of the tribe to escape. So many were scattered by the assault though. The aftermath… we see here. Now, more than ever, the Sorrows are in dire need of aid."

Still the Courier made no attempt at speaking. He may not have even been able to; his journey to the brink of death changing much of him, as did the knowledge it had come to provide him.

"They are with the Dead Horses now, all holding the eastern river. The White Legs have become bold after their victory in the Narrows. They have been aggressively raiding points across the valley. It will not be long before they make their final push. Yet we are paralysed by indecision. Daniel cannot see that we must stand and fight, now more than ever."

Waiting for them around a bend in the waters stood Pale Omen. He turned as they approached and walked with him. "Courier, you live," he said, using what English he knew. "Two fight another day."

They continued, coming to the place where Salt-Upon-Wounds had pushed forward. The Braid, where that divide between life and death had appeared to the Courier once again.

The blood – his blood – was still on the boulder where he had slumped and fallen away from the world.

"I carry," Pale Omen said as the young man made his way to where his own death was painted on the stone, brushing a hand across it. "We go to cave, take shelter. Lay dead to rrr…rest."

So he had been carried by the son of the White Legs. Sheltered in that cave while his people violated the Sorrows' home.

What to think of that forced exile? That bastard child pretending to be in step with the Burned Man?

"They attacked. You awake not, we cannot take. Lay to rest, hope you dead not," Pale Omen continued. His grasp of the language had gotten stronger.

"Clearly your state was not permanent after all," Joshua Graham observed. "We feared the worst when Pale Omen and Waking Cloud told us. The Sorrows grieved for you like you were one of their own."

Courier Six, an honorary Sorrow. Given the same respect in death that they might have to their own kin. They were such a kind people.

They made their way out of the Narrows. Waiting for them at the crest where Salt-Upon-Wounds had perched were another two companions waiting to join.

Follows-Chalk, the young Dead Horses scout, with his arm in a sling and the other brandishing his pistol. His injury was already healing well thanks to the medical skill of the Sorrows and their miraculous drugs.

Waking Cloud rounded out their group, one of the few survivors of the White Legs' onslaught, a hunter and a Sorrow. She seemed to have survived the assault with nothing but bruises and scrapes.

"We thought the worst," Waking Cloud sighed.

"I knew you would not fall so easily. You're different," Follows-Chalk said confidently, a triumphant smile on his lips.

Still the Courier said nothing. A nod given to both his friends before all five continued their journey through Zion once more.

Recent triumphs and failures were spoken of. The Red Rapids docks had been set alight, burning an attack party to death. It had been a pyrrhic victory; the Dead Horse who had enacted the plan had been unable to retreat in time. She had burned along with her foes, charred away to nothing.

Ranger Substation Osprey was now a White Legs outpost, the raised building offering a sinister sniper's nest that was steadily becoming more fortified.

The Clear Water docks had been take in a brutal onslaught that was complicated by the presence of local wildlife; Yao Guai had been led towards the camp, and when the fighting broke out they had become aggressive, lashing out at anything they could. The Dead Horses trying to hold the docks had been forced into the water. Many didn't manage to escape through the water.

A defensive position had been set up at the Sun Sentinels to keep tabs an eye on all movement in the surrounding area. The high location afforded a great vantage point, but Daniel had been unsure about using the walkie-talkies for it, preferring to keep them ready for his evacuation plan. Currently scouts simply had to make the fast dash back to the camp on the river, or to the necessary outposts.

An abandoned camp site used by visitors to Zion long ago near the Ghost Den had been taken by the White Legs and used as a prison camp, holding women and children of the Sorrows for terrible purposes.

The war for Zion was spoken of amongst the companions as they returned to their camp, taking care to avoid the areas that now fell into the hands of their enemies. Action was being taken, but it was not enough. Slowly the White Legs were crushing the smaller tribes despite their efforts to rally against them.

It would only be a matter of time before Zion was completely consumed by the dark desires of those hellions.

But there we were, the five of us making our way back to what, for all of us, was a temporary home, to prepare ourselves for whatever would come afterwards.

Follows-Chalk of the Dead Horses.

Waking Cloud of the Sorrows.

Pale Omen of the White Legs.

Joshua Graham of New Canaan.

Courier Six of Nowhere.

And still the Drifter would say nothing, his mouth remaining closed, his mind remaining open, listening as those around him continued their discussions and their plots.

Once again evening was beginning to grasp the sky when they returned to the Dead Horses camp, making their way to the Angel's Cave, their 'war room' of sorts.

Daniel was already there, speaking with some of the Dead Horses and Sorrows, discussing more action, in this case ways to open the roads out of Zion and quietly slip away.

"Courier! A mercy on us all that you are still with us!" Daniel said, surprised, as the group strode into his presence.

"We found him in the Narrows, returned to the aftermath," Joshua replied, moving towards the table where previously he had been stacking working guns. Daniel had since cleared them away, piling them into a crate and replacing them with maps, a fact that Joshua noted and did not seem all too happy with.

"So what is going to happen now?" Follows-Chalk wondered. Despite his broken arm he seemed more confident than ever, standing amongst those who were coordinating the fate of Zion and its defence.

The Courier stepped back as Joshua moved towards Daniel, letting himself drift into the shadows and observe the situation.

"Now we prepare for our counter-offensive," Joshua stated.

Daniel looked at him hard. "We don't have time for that. More of the Sorrows die every day. We can't keep pausing like this; we need to pull ourselves away from Zion."

"But if we do that the White Legs will just follow us," Follows-Chalk pointed out.

Daniel shook his head, tapping a point on his map. "Not if we collapse the tunnel as we leave. We can vanish that way, and the distance between us will be wide enough that we escape them completely. They'll never find us again, as long as we're quiet and careful about how we do things. Which is why we need to place all our attention on this."

"I believe that Daniel is right. We will fight, but only in order to ensure our safety as we make our way to a new home," Waking Cloud agreed. "His judgement has never steered us wrong before."

"But they will find us," Follows-Chalk said flatly. "We can run and hide, but they will find us."

"There's no guarantee. Caesar will not keep his offer open forever. It's likely he'll never give them what they want even if they do succeed," Daniel pointed out.

"Caesar may not grant them entrance into the Legion, but he will string them along until there are none left to offer anything to. Only then will he finally toss them aside. Those false promises will make them as hounds, though," Joshua sighed, recalling his former friend. "He will blind them with promises to ensure their continued loyalty and motivation. We cannot afford to simply hope that they do not track us down and begin this battle all over again, but with even worse chances for us."

"But we can afford to throw away lives in order to hopefully push them out of Zion?" Daniel said exasperatedly. "It's not worth the death that will result! It could cripple the tribe for generations!"

"And so will losing their home," Follows-Chalk said with surprising conviction.

"You don't understand," Daniel said, looking at the young scout. "The Sorrows aren't like the Dead Horses."

"That doesn't mean they shouldn't defend themselves," Joshua said, standing beside Follows-Chalk.

Pale Omen and the Courier remained quiet, one unable to follow the conversation as it bounced between the four different viewpoints, understanding only that they were considering fight or flight, and unable to agree.

The Courier just listened. As he stood there one of the Dead Horses approached him, smiling, and offered him his duster. He gratefully took it, returning the smile without so much as a word.

"But it shouldn't mean they have to become accustomed to war!" Daniel said, louder.

"Self-defence is not a choice," Joshua replied, his dry voice only a little louder. "One either fights back, or they accept defeat. Loss will destroy the spirit of the Sorrows."

"And war will destroy them just as fast, but there will be no recovering!"

"Battle will shed too much blood. I do not know if the Sorrows could abide such a thing, and I do not believe it should be put to the test," Waking Cloud cut in.

"Exactly!" Daniel agreed. "The Sorrows have lost so many already! Waking Cloud's-"

Abruptly the New Canaanite stopped speaking. A moment of distress passed over his face before he looked down at his maps and began checking the locations hurriedly. "We cannot ask them to give up any more," he finished.

A few moments silence followed.

Eventually, Waking Cloud managed to ask. "What… has happened to my husband?"

Daniel was clearly hesitant to answer.

"Daniel. There is no use keeping things hidden from her now," Joshua said calmly, his previously argumentative tone swept away by the coming bad news.

The other New Canaanite heaved a sigh. "Waking Cloud… your three children are safe. They made it north weeks ago and met up with the New Canaanites heading west," he began, hoping to soften the blow with good news. "Your husband didn't make it. He died protecting the children from a White Leg attack."

Nobody was willing to break the silence that followed. Inevitably, it was Waking Cloud who did. Her voice was emotionless, held tightly in check until she knew exactly what to feel. "Why?"

Daniel was slow to react, looking at Waking Cloud for a long time with sorrow in his eyes. "You're one of the few who can communicate easily with us. I… your tribe needed you to be strong right now."

"Her husband!" Follows-Chalk exclaimed indignantly, some spark of chivalry igniting in him. "How could you keep it secret!"

Joshua Graham's hand gripped the scout's shoulder, silencing him with silent force.

Waking Cloud was staring at Daniel in disbelief, words rising and failing to pass her lips.

Pale Omen, his grasp only somewhat stronger now on the situation, growled low in his throat. He could sense how tense the situation was, and it was making him extremely uncomfortable.

"What gives you the right?" she demanded.

"To every thing, there is a season. Who am I to put this burden on you now?" Daniel asked, his hands grasping at the air.

"You were her friend and teacher, Daniel. It is your duty to help and lead the Sorrows, not to hide things from them," Joshua stated, his dry voice adding an edge to the truth that stung Daniel, though the Burned Man did not speak harshly, or falsely.

He sat, his elbows on the table and his forehead in his hand. "I know," he admitted. "You're right, Joshua. I shouldn't have hidden it, I… Waking Cloud, I'm sorry. I just… we can't fail here again. Zion can't become the next New Canaan. The Sorrows don't deserve that. They don't deserve any of this. Sometimes I look at you all and… wonder if you would have been better off if those old trails had stayed forgotten. If we had never found any of them."

"He did what he believed right," Joshua concluded, looking across at the woman who had lost her husband. "Do not think too harshly of him."

"Perhaps…" Waking Cloud said, turning and beginning to walk away. "Daniel, you and I will have a very long talk when all of this is over."

Daniel was silent, unable to say anything else in the wake of his explanations, the confession cutting the previously heated argument off entirely.

"Wow… what do you think, Courier?" Follows-Chalk wondered, tilting his head back towards the shadows where the Courier stood.

Still silence.

"Courier, you haven't said a word since we found you. Are you all right?" Joshua wondered, turning around to direct his attention at the outsider.

He wasn't standing there anymore.

In fact he was no longer in the cave, something those who still were realised as they glanced around for the man.

One of the Dead Horses entered the cave. "Joshua Graham, the utman stands at Angel's Peak."

A passage through the back of the cave made its way out onto a cliff that overlooked the camp. A piece of the cliff jutted forward from the stone, overhanging the water. Even in the evening his silhouette could easily be seen standing over the Dead Horses and Sorrows, torchlight illuminating his back, the air of the raised location letting his duster once again snap in the wind, gratefully upon his shoulders.

The part that had been most heavily damaged had been stitched using the Dead Horse's methods. The reddish brown fabric wove into the grey of the coat, and in one particularly torn part a patch with tribal designs had been used to patch it, two snake-like beings, one above the other, inverted so that their heads were side-by-side. Their tails curled into spirals.

An important emblem to the Dead Horses, one used since the tribe's birth. Now it rested in the duster, making Courier Six look larger and stronger than he had in days.

Many were looking up at the figure now, standing at the edge of the cliff, looking down on the two tribes as they hid together, uncertain of their destinies. Two children hiding from death, hoping to find a way to triumph over it before it found them.

"What is he doing?" Daniel wondered, stepping out onto the beach with the others behind him.

Waking Cloud was nearby, her eyes filled with tears of grief, yet beyond that she kept her attention on the Drifter.

Follows-Chalk stepped forward, wading into the water to stare up at the man he'd followed for days, and had come to greatly respect.

The Burned Man stood at the back of the group, his fiercely crystal blue eyes curiously and cautiously watching another outsider address a band of tribals.

Pale Omen was beside him, glancing between the two as Joshua Graham looked up at a new Caesar standing over the Blackfoots, there at the Grand Canyon, announcing his plans for them.

More emerged from their tents and makeshift bedding, gathering to see what the Courier, who had said nothing since his supposed death, would do now that he stood above them all, with knowledge that nobody else alive possessed.

In the time he had spent there in Zion his hair had grown. It was longer, and a beard had appeared on his face, small, but it added something to his appearance. Something extra that seemed to say he'd grown a lot in a short space of time.

"I have visited the brink of death. Walked through the darkness, where nothing but the sound of the water's flow guided me. Shreds of light to guide my path onwards through the cave. I was sent to that place by the White Legs, my journey begun with their hostility, burning my body and sending my mind away in pain. I was aided then by two people. The first was once amongst the White Legs too. A man many still hold reservations about. Pale Omen saved my life, and carried me to safety."

Many of the tribals did not understand the Wanderer's words, but those that did translated in the moment of pause he took, carefully selecting his next words.

"I was wounded, my journey impaired. The second to aid me was Waking Cloud, child of the Sorrows, and it was she, so fresh from a loss she did not yet know, that tended my wounds and sent me further on my journey. Revived, I found myself within the hallowed caverns the people of Zion so revere. Was I alive or dead? I did not yet know, but I journeyed onwards in order to find the answer."

Daniel looked across at Waking Cloud. Her eyes were bound to the Courier now.

Follows-Chalk, surrounded by a group of Dead Horses who did not know the outsider's tongue so well, translated for his kin.

"Listen to me, Sorrows of Zion. I walked through that darkness, making my way through the trials set in motion by a being who is more than a man to you. A being who was long before, and is now silent to you. I travelled to the end of the abyss, and there I met the Father."

A murmur turned into a veritable tide of chatter. Joshua looked about uneasily, before returning his eyes to the Courier, this time critically. His next words would be important to everything in Zion.

Daniel on the other hand was white. He feared what the Courier's words might do to the vulnerable Sorrows.

"I feel strange, standing here and speaking to you all, bearing a message from Him. But ultimately that is what I am, the messenger. Hermes to Zeus, if you will, though I doubt you will know that faith."

Greek, it was. Caesar's Legion would know 'Hermes' as 'Mercury'. Joshua Graham noted the distinction.

"Zion, he told me, is a gift to each and every one of you. It is a gift, an infinite apology for the sorrows in your lives. Even greater still, it is an apology for the sorrows man has visited upon man for so very, very long. He wishes for you to be kind to one another, to never try to hurt each other, because each and every one of you have earned his love."

Daniel and Joshua exchanged glances. To them, this was surprisingly familiar, yet it was the Courier, a man without a faith, that had arrived in Zion and come to speak this way.

"The Father wants you to know that in exchange for these gifts he has given you he asks for nothing. You have already granted him one; the chance to behold innocence."

The tribals were quiet now. Translations were hushed, reverent. The Dead Horses, though the words were not directed at them, listened with as much respect as any of the Sorrows amongst them.

The Courier heaved a sigh, knowing that his next words would be the ones that forced Zion to change forever.

"But the Father also told me that should any who would do you or Zion harm come to this place you must strike back with righteous fury. Zion is a gift to the innocent, and in the name of the Father in the Caves we must defend it for the Sorrows who will grow up here in the years yet to come."

Joshua and Daniel exchanged glances again, but this time it was not confusion in both their eyes. Triumph was in the clear blue eyes of Joshua Graham. Terror filled Daniel's.

"Sorrows, it is time to defend your home. It will not be easy, but now is the time to stand up and make the Father proud of you. Innocence is a thing of beauty, so defend it in the name of your children and their children too. Help me, and we shall take your home back!"

Much time later the Courier finally admitted to me that what he had said that evening, while still truth in essence, was not what had really happened. He told me the story of the cave, and of the things he found there. But he chose, ultimately, to let the Sorrows keep their faith in the Father.

His silence had been had been the choice. His knowledge of the Sorrows, his knowledge of Zion, his feelings about the situation and the careful debate about what needed to happen. To fly from Zion, or to fight for it, and what it might do to its people.

When the choice was finally made, all that was left was to give the Sorrows their faith, and in doing so he had given himself the same.

He made his way back into the Angel's cave, where he was met by Joshua Graham, Daniel, Pale Omen, and Follows-Chalk.

Daniel was the first to speak. "How dare you do that to them," he spat.

The Courier stepped over to the maps of the region and began looking over them, ignoring the anger in Daniel's voice.

"That was not your choice to make!" he pressed, making his way towards the Drifter, a furious indignation radiating from him.

"I didn't realise it was yours instead," the Courier said flatly, refusing to even look at Daniel. "I did not make the choice alone."

"You claim to have 'met' with the Father in the Caves? You are using their faith to make them take your chosen path!"

The Courier turned, acknowledging Daniel with a stare that melted ice and boiled rivers. "What happened in that cave is not for anyone to know, but the message I carried is as real as you or I. I chose to tell them in such a way that their beliefs did not need to suffer for it. I gave them the wishes of the Father, and I have every intention of safeguarding them until Zion is free from the White Legs forever."

The New Canaanite hesitated, drawing back from the intensity of the Courier's resolution.

"A powerful speech, Courier. It reminded me of… Edward. Before he was Caesar. Before righteous fury turned to domination and conquest. Take care you do not walk the same path," Joshua warned, approaching the Vagabond.

"I have no intention of leading the Sorrows, or conquering the White Legs. I will defend them. That is our duty, Joshua. To have come here and seen the wonder of Zion. You said it yourself. It should be defended. You believe so in the name of your God as well as for the sake of the Sorrows. I believe so because of them too, but also because I feel that it is a duty I inherited. Regardless of the reasons, though, we work towards the same goal. So let us stop arguing. Let us stop thinking about whether or not we need to run. We defend Zion."

"Haven't you seen enough of what's going on here to see that the Sorrows don't need to butcher the White Legs for a piece of land?" Daniel continued to protest, but now there was a more pleading tone. "What Joshua wants is more than an attack. He wants a slaughter, and he needs more than you and the Dead Horses to do it."

"This isn't about me siding with Joshua. This is about the Sorrows."

"The Sorrows? You can't manipulate them into this! You and Joshua don't have the right to make them do it! Please, consider what I'm saying!" Daniel continued, painfully aware he was losing the argument.

"But you have the right to make them leave their home behind? I'm sorry Daniel. Truly, I am. But this is the world we live in, and the White Legs are too persistent to risk them simply hunting everyone down," the Courier replied evenly, making note of the Red Gate, a landmark within the valley.

"And what is Joshua going to teach them about being a warrior? What are you going to tell them about how to live with themselves after they get lost in the moment, killed someone who didn't deserve to die?" Daniel demanded, knowing that he would not convince them otherwise now, but still pushing regardless.

"Daniel, this is the way of the world, whether we like it or not," Joshua said softly, trying not to hurt his friend's feelings further than their actions already had.

"No," Daniel sighed deeply, shaking his head. "This is how we made the world. And we brought it to them."

He refused to say another word, turning and leaving the cave. On his way he passed Waking Cloud as she entered. Neither said a word to the other.

"Courier," she said, making her way into their midst. "What you said just now… why did you say it?"

"It was no lie, Waking Cloud. I met the Father. Not in the traditional manner, but I met him, and I understood his will," the Courier said seriously, looking straight into her eyes as he spoke.

She searched them for signs of his lie, but nothing was there to be found. "H-how?" she said in disbelief.

"I cannot say. I promised us both I would not. But make no mistake. My words were truth. He wishes Zion to remain in your hands. He wishes nothing defile it," the Courier replied earnestly.

Joshua stepped forward, looking over the maps. "It seems you have found God after all, Courier," he said, looking at him.

The Drifter looked across at him. "Perhaps, Joshua. I wonder if they are the same. Then, I wonder if that ultimately matters, as long as the ideals are the same."

"Well said," Joshua Graham replied with a degree of admiration.

"So then what now?" Follows-Chalk wondered, finally feeling it safe to speak with the tension between Daniel, the Courier and Joshua eased by the absence of the acting leader of the Sorrows – though that role was now in question.

The Courier looked at them all. Whatever it was that had happened between he and 'the Father' that the Sorrows revered, he had left a stronger man, and it was clear to see that there was more leadership in him now, even while he stood beside men like Joshua. More certain of his own existence.

"It's not going to be the easy road, but now we work to bring Zion back us. Back to the Sorrows," the Vagabond stated.

"War," Pale Omen said, understanding the tone much greater now.

"War," Courier Six agreed. "A crusade."


	30. O Daughter of Babylon

Alright, here we've got a bit of a ramp-up. Admittedly this arc is a bit heavy on the back end, I probably could have tried to space events out a little easier, but the transition between all the story you can easily stumble across and read in a few hours needs to be structured quite differently, and sometimes you plan for something that ultimately doesn't pan out as you thought it would.

That's not to say I'm displeased with this arc, and I hope none of you are either.

Thank you for the consistent reviews Gufetto and jd, it's great to have the little boosts to my drive to keep me going.

Spartan, I think you've gotten a pretty good read on pretty much everything in your review there, and I'll start by addressing Daniel and Waking Cloud, who I agree, haven't been seen enough. Part of that is that I simply have a difficult time writing for Daniel. Perhaps that's a case of practice with more characters like him, as I found myself getting more in tune with him as I kept writing for him, but primarily Honest Hearts is about Joshua Graham, who I feel didn't get near enough attention in the actual Honest Hearts, and so I've focused it more on him, and by association Follows-Chalk because of the hero-worship and how that factors into the story. This diminished the Sorrows somewhat, and with Waking Cloud not getting as much attention it almost pushed them to the back and makes them a simple point of debate for Joshua and the Courier - which somewhat feeds into other aspects of their personalities, though I won't claim that was wholeheartedly intentional on my part.

Regardless of the ups and downs, I hope you guys continue to enjoy the story, and hopefully by the time all is said and done it will be sewn together nicely. There's still a bit to get through yet, so let's see where it takes us, shall we?

* * *

><p><em><strong>O Daughter of Babylon, who Art to be Destroyed<strong>_

_Date of Log: 1st December, 2281_

_Estimated Time of Memory: April 2272_

Still a teenager, walking the roads built by the NCR between their great cities. Learning their stories. Understanding what it was that made dad decry them.

California, the land at the edge of the world, bordering the endless expanse of nothing.

Cerberus and I had decided that we wanted to see the 'ocean'. The Domain of Poseidon, so my mother had said. The stories were all contained in the book I carried with me.

Myths and legends of the world from so very, very long ago. Ancient even before the end of the world.

Gods. Curious beings. Some accounts claimed they were like humans. Others called them impossible beings that no human mind could ever comprehend.

He was huge now, as big as he was going to get, the shaggiest looking monster you ever saw. I was happy to have him with me too. More than once I had a few people start circling like hungry animals, and Cerberus scared 'em off before I even had a chance to draw a weapon. Every now and again they'd get cocky, and I'd get a chance to shoot.

I hadn't mastered everything at that point, and I suppose I still haven't now, but I had enough training thanks to dad; I could pull the trigger and aim it accurately enough to stop a man dead in his tracks.

Helps that revolvers are considerably more powerful than pistols.

My boots pounding into the dirt as I walked. Cerberus loping at my side. Word had travelled pretty fast about the young courier with a huge black dog walking beside him. I'd started jokingly calling myself Hades, to have an association with the big black dog Cerberus. Hades and his gatekeeper.

Hmm, 'Hades'.

Sounds a little bit more like a name than 'Courier Six', doesn't it?

Still, I've grown kind of fond of this faux name. Maybe I'll use Hades if I ever need to stop being a courier for a while. I mean it sounds kind of odd to say 'Hi, I'm Courier Six, the shopkeeper', doesn't it?

Then again, 'Hi, I'm Hades the shopkeeper' isn't much more common, I suppose.

I was pretty excited as I made my way up the slope. The sounds of the waves crashing into the beach were so alien. An ebbing roar that built into a crash and then grew quiet as it prepared for the next assault on the shore.

I reached down and patted the mongrel on his head. He kept pace with me well, even after walking for so long. Cerberus had a lot more energy though, even for a creature that spent it on twice as many legs.

I was nearing the top, and as I did the ocean came into view where the grey horizon of the sky touched it, forming a wide, flat line that turned a thick murky blue as it continued down towards the shore.

As it hit the beach it went from a sick-looking blue to total brown, foam bubbling as it smashed against the shore, slowly eroding the land over a course of time humans simply could not comprehend with such tiny life spans by comparison.

"Wow," was all I managed as I took in the sight of such an enormous body of water.

There was no way something like that could ever sustain life. Cerberus loped down the beach towards it, and I followed.

He sniffed in its direction, and then promptly jumped backwards as the water roared and leaped at him, racing up the beach in a vain attempt to catch his paws. Even though he was far enough back to avoid its assault, the dog still took the precaution of dashing a little further away to make sure.

Can't say I blame him either. How many broken pieces of humanity had been submerged deep in that toxic expanse?

I sat down on the beach and just stared out over the rolling waves, recalling the stories I'd been told.

It seemed so surreal to finally experience the ocean. My mother had talked about it from time to time, going through her books to find pictures of it in the faded pages. Even those faded memories did not compare to what had actually happened. A dirty, worn picture of what the seas used to be did no justice to the true death it had come to embody.

Pollution and decay. Staples of our world, with nothing but pictures of what it used to be. Cities that are just huge concrete skeletons lying spread across the ground where they had lived and died. Carcasses picked over by the scavengers known as humanity, their hands no longer able to build what they had come to destroy.

And the ocean, once a shimmering expanse of blue that people could stand in, gently swaying with the waves, losing themselves in the flow… now it was poison to all it touched. Drinking it could be nothing less than fire in one's body, and to stand it in now looked like it would slowly eat away at fabric and even skin.

I sat there for quite a while, with Cerberus beside me, petting the old dog and watching the new world's ocean, the conflicting stories about then and now playing out in my head as I silently angsted about the world. It seemed so unfair that so long ago they had screwed up, and now, nearly two centuries later, we who had no part in that were still paying the price, living in the dead lands they left behind.

But those feelings of injustice were reconciled as I grew older. Justice is something you have to introduce to the world by yourself. Expecting others to do it yields no results. Hypocrisy is human, but that's a tool used both for and against us.

I guess seeing the ocean like that, after all the stories my mother used to tell me about the past was just that last kick to the kid I was back then that finally drove home those points. No, life is not fair. We are still paying for the mistakes of humanity two hundred years ago. We'll still be paying for those mistakes in a hundred years, and I will never live to see the world regain some semblance of what it used to be.

It sounds kind of discouraging, and it was exactly that nearly a decade ago when I finally accepted, but I'm more at peace with it now. This is our world, what's left of it, and we'll keep living on, for good or for ill.

You called it the 'blind drive onward' Father. I guess that's what it is. The wounded behemoth unable to bring itself to death, even when it chooses so. We're all just a drop in that toxic ocean now. But maybe in time those wounds can heal. Years from now, when we're all just bones and stories, maybe things can be back on track.

What I do know right here and now though, is that Zion is already the place that I hoped for that day on the shore.

For you, Randall, I will defend it. With all that I have.

_~ 2275 ~_

_Some time after the discovery of Hoover Dam by one of the frumentarii, scouts report that the NCR has moved into the Mojave region. Caesar prepares for war._

_BEWARE – A VENGEFUL SPIRIT STALKS THESE CANYONS_

_If you are reading this message do yourself a favour and turn and run straight out of this canyon.  
>For near 11 months my people have been engaged in daily battle with an evil spirit of this place.<br>Arriving February of last year with a party 118 strong, we were attacked by primitives and forced to defend ourselves. Whereupon something began killing us in wide numbers. We have done our absolute best to find and kill this thing, thinking it was a man because it uses our firearms against us and traps of all kinds. But no man could defy our efforts as this thing has. It is more evil than any man could be.  
>We have been reduced to just 34 of our number. We have lost six overseers before me. Some have perished from the sickness in their lungs we carried out of the Vault. But that number is small next to the count of friends this thing has murdered.<br>Now that I am finally made overseer, we are leaving straight away and will not return. If you have come to this seeming paradise seeking the fresh water, abundant game, and shelter you suppose you will find here, do not be deceived. You will find only death here. Leave at once and put miles between you and this place.  
>May God have mercy on us all,<br>J. Hendricks  
>Overseer<br>V22 Expedition_

The message had been both scratched into the stone near the bag in which the holotape containing the same thing had been sitting for years.

Vault Dwellers were people who hid underground when the end came, many many years ago, hiding in terror from the fire that burned the world. Eventually they crawled from their holes and began repopulating the world and rebuilding it. They were many little splintered tribes whose names were based on the number of the Vault from which they came, numbering over one hundred.

The tribe of Twenty-Two had left this message upon leaving Zion before the time of the Sorrows, abandoning a campsite now littered with the skeletons of the fallen that had been given no burial by the rapidly retreating Vault Dwellers.

The skeletons upon the earth had been joined by new kin in recent days. The White Legs brought captives to the place because it was removed from much of the rest of Zion, making it harder to access and thus easier to defend. Marking the trail were idols of war built by the invaders, before the cages holding the Sorrows were set up in a large clearing.

White Legs patrolled them, occasionally deciding it was time to make one suffer. They invented cruel games for them, flaying them slowly, cutting them and poisoning the open wounds, or simply beating them until they were no longer breathing.

Other times they dragged them out of the cages and bled them over basins, pooling the blood to anoint their warriors with tattoos or to sacrifice the waters of life to the violent spirits they prayed to.

When a crack sounded and a sniper's bullet blew the head off one of the patrolling White Legs the rest scrambled for cover from their attacker. Before he found it, another had a round shoot through his chest, ripping his heart to pieces and leaving him dead before he hit the ground.

More bullets soared through the air, catching one in the shoulder, another collapsed as his leg was punctured, before one of the snipers who had been holding back took the opportunity to blow the head off the prone White Leg.

Disorientated, the White Legs under cover waited, catching their breath and shouting words between them that the other tribes of Zion did not understand, keeping their battle plans a secret.

'Bloodmoon, use the captives as cover and find the attackers' said one, while another yelled 'Just start killing them!'

Pale Omen knew the language of his birth, and enough English to relay it to the Courier. The Courier was quick to put down Bloodmoon as he raced for the cover of the captive Sorrows, anticipating his escape from cover.

The White Legs were on edge as their battle plans suddenly seemed less hidden from enemy ears.

"Now!" roared a voice from far off.

The White Legs had only moments to process what was happening before a storm of stones and logs fell from the cracks in the walls of their hidden canyon, rolling out and crashing down upon them, the weight outright killing some.

Others were injured as the stones and wood crushed limbs and those quick enough to dash from cover found their deaths quickly at the hands of the snipers.

Appearing from the nooks in the stone the Sorrows poured their arrows down into the few White Legs who still remained after the assault, the assault ending the last pieces of resistance from the surprise attack. The night was only just beginning to end, shreds of dawn beginning to appear in the sky, when the Dead Horses, led by Courier Six, made their way into the camp, noticing the message scrawled on the stone so long ago, and began to free the captives.

"You were planning to run for a long time. You thought that to leave was your only option. Today is a new day, dawning over a new Zion. Your Zion," the Courier announced as his blade cut through the ropes binding the well-built wooden cages shut.

"Crusade!" Pale Omen roared, raising his rifle in the air. An anti-materiel rifle stolen from a fallen foe's corpse. The scope had afforded a view of the narrow pass, but that had not stopped Pale Omen's silent feet from approaching a different way and driving his gauntlet into the unaware woman's head.

The enormous piece of technology around the Courier's wrist, the Pip-Boy, crackled into life. "Courier, we're seeing a large group making their way towards you. I think one of the patrols heard you, and they brought more," Follows-Chalk reported through the device, despite being far away.

He was using the walkie talkie, which with a little work between Joshua and the Courier had been rigged to run on the same frequency as the other piece of Old World technology, effectively allowing for three different parties to converse from different edges of Zion.

Follows-Chalk and another party of Dead Horses were laying low, keeping hidden on an overlook some distance from the pass that ran up to the former Tribe Twenty-Two camp, watching as the party of White Legs made their way up towards the converted prison camp.

"Everyone, take up a defensive position!" the Courier called, making his way to the stone wall and resting his back against it, a few paces right of the opening through which the White Legs would come.

"What is the plan?" Follows-Chalk asked.

"Follow them in. Attack them from behind. We'll crush them in a pincer, you surprise them from behind after they engage us, and while they're confused we'll overrun them and kill every last one."

"Effective, but be careful you're not lured into vulnerability, Follows-Chalk," came the dry voice of Joshua Graham. "You might crush this party, but that will be undone if you are caught on your exit."

"Joshua. That's true. Courier?" Follows-Chalk replied, passing leadership back to the Vagabond.

"Attack them now. You're more open to attack where you are, but you won't be bottle-necked. Push them into the pass, but don't pursue them. I'll bring the prisoners, take the weapons off the dead here, and we'll stage the pincer at the other end. You can get away if you need to, and that'll make assaulting us in the camp suicide as long as you can still strike from the back. Joshua?"

"A sound plan, if a little dangerous for Follows-Chalk. Are you up to it, scout?"

"Scout-in-training, Joshua. Yes, we can do it."

Joshua laughed into his receiver, the good-natured amusement audible through the Courier's wrist and the device in Follows-Chalk's hand. "I think, at this point, you are more than a scout, young Follows-Chalk."

There was no reply from the young tribal, but Courier Six could tell Follows-Chalk was proud to be told that by his hero.

A few moments of silence passed before one more transmission came through. "We're attacking now. Go!"

"Everyone, listen to me!" the Vagabond called as the prisoners, dazed, waited to be told what was happening. "Those of you who were hunters, grab a weapon off the fallen. Priority goes to those who can use them best, but if there are more weapons than there are hunters, then I want any of you who believes they could fire upon a man or woman of the White Legs to pick up a gun and prepare to use it. Our enemies are being pushed into the pass by the Dead Horses, and we are going to attack them from behind. Skilled hands make for short work, as a great man told me recently, so if we are quick and efficient in this task, I do not believe any one of us needs to die for this plan."

They were somewhat slow to approach the idea, having spent so long cowering in fear and avoiding battle at the behest of Daniel, but as their kin who had helped save them began to instruct those who did not speak English, all the while holding rifles themselves, they began to accept the idea.

Civilians turned into warriors.

The power of war, changing people into weapons.

Courier Six led them, of course. He was fast becoming a man to stand beside Daniel and Joshua in the eyes of the tribes, leading a number of successful raids in the days since his announcement shifted the attitude towards the war for Zion.

The White Legs had been caught unaware by the sheer force of will the united tribes displayed as the Sorrows trained for war and Joshua Graham, alongside an ever-changing cast including Courier Six, Pale Omen, Follows-Chalk, Waking Cloud, and a number of others, engaged in guerrilla warfare tactics across the valley.

The Wanderer had been a part of many of the charges, taking territory back and pushing the White Legs out of the eastern side of Zion. Finally they'd been able to strike at a prison camp, freeing the Sorrows and adding to their own numbers. The game in Zion was changing, and the number Six was the catalyst.

As gunfire began to echo once again the Courier drew his revolver, striding into the pass with Pale Omen on his heels, both ready for the battle, separate motivations but a common interest.

His coat back on his shoulders again the Courier was a different man, and the markings of the Dead Horses tailoring on it gave him an edge of tribal spirit. Underneath it he had been given newer armour, a set of old armour found in one of the caverns of the Father that the Sorrows had passed through when they fled the Narrows. Feeling that they should not wear something that had been held by the Father, they had given it to the Courier, his messenger, who had gladly donned it.

Old armour from the Time Before, made of durable material that layered over his chest in segments that allowed more movement at the cost of leaving gaps a knife could exploit, assuming one could get close enough.

They'd bandaged his wound and seen to it that it was well on its way to recovery before fitting it over him. The higher collar prevented any strikes to the throat, and the name 'R.B. Vickers' on it identified the solder who had worn it in the Time Before.

It had already caught a bullet for him.

As he made his way through the narrow pass to the battle, he drew his second weapon, a pistol from a fallen foe that took clips the White Legs carried in spades, making it an easy weapon to keep in use, while his revolver's ammunition needed to be used somewhat more sparingly.

A White Leg bolted towards him around the corner, forgetting the reason they had moved toward the camp in the fray of battle behind him. Courier Six's hesitation was non-existent. It was almost terrifying, the righteousness in him as he shot the enemy, absolute justification blazing in his eyes.

Crusade. A holy war. That was what he had become now, yes.

A Crusader. Courier Six, Crusader of Zion.

He rounded the corner with both his guns ready and began firing into the foes as they attempted to retreat from Follows-Chalk and his ambush.

Pale Omen appeared behind him, his rifle booming loudly, slaying man upon man, sometimes more than one in a single shot.

The Sorrows following him followed moments later, and suddenly a wall of gunfire ripped the retreating White Legs to pieces, eviscerating their party as confusion and terror disorientated them. Follows-Chalk's ambush party closed in and helped finish them off, the scout lining up a shot and firing with his gun in his left hand now, catching a man in the shoulder when he might have once instead brought him down entirely. His aim was getting better though.

Within moments the battle was over, and true to his word, not one of the former captives had been slain, though a few of Follows-Chalk's companions would require medical attention for bullets that had buried themselves in limbs or grazed them. One unlucky woman would need her ribs to be tended where a bullet had broken a piece of one.

He did not wait for celebration, the Wanderer began walking. "We return to camp. Keep a wary eye on your backs, the White Legs will see a group this size with ease. Stick to the eastern side of the river and move quickly. A group with this many unarmed is a tempting prospect to deal a blow to morale, we cannot afford such a thing after such a successful assault," he instructed.

As translations were issued to those who did not understand, the Courier moved up to walk alongside Follows-Chalk. "Guide them back, alright? I'm going to take Pale Omen and check up on Joshua in person."

"Of course," Follows-Chalk agreed.

With that the Courier detached from the main party, tapping Pale Omen on the shoulder to draw him away with him. Both slipped across the river as they passed it without a word and vanished into the scrub up the hill on the other side.

"Well done," Pale Omen said as they made their way over the hill, keeping low and casting wary eyes around the valley for scope glint or signs of movement.

Their eyes found movement, but rather than White Legs it was a small pack of green geckoes attacking a lone Yao Guai. As powerful as the enormous hairy creatures were, the geckoes had used their numbers to their advantage, and despite bringing down three of them in the first few swipes, the Yao Guai was quickly overrun by the razor teeth of the other five. It seemed as though they had claimed victory at first, but it was quickly snatched away as another kind of hunter appeared.

Cazadores, which the Courier had yet to see many of, were enormous insects, their bodies divided into three segments; the heads on which their bulbous orange eyes rested seeing in many directions at once unlike our focused view, a body from which six long legs protruded in front of four large fluttering wings whose bright orange colour was a strong and deadly warning to all who saw them. Beneath that was the largest segment, the base of which was home to the stinger, coated in venom that caused all wounds inflicted to burn with a pain and agony like nothing in the world. Nothing could ever exaggerate just how impossibly painful the sting of a Cazador is, and only a truly cruel being would coat their weapons in such venom as to inflict those wounds upon their foes – the agony is near-instantaneous, and it takes an incredible force of will to ignore it long enough to slay the creature if it manages to strike first, and even if by some miracle one does emerge victorious after being stung, the blinding agony would eventually overwhelm them, likely after the end of the battle. Without help arriving, the poison will kill the person shortly after the pain forces them to lose consciousness.

If you are ever stung by a Cazador, pray. If you manage to slay it, you may just live long enough to have someone arrive and give you the medical attention necessary to neutralise the poison, which thankfully is quick-burning and therefore easy to cleanse, assuming it is done in time.

If, however, you are ever assaulting by more than a single Cazador, even just two of them, and one manages to sting you, I will not offer you any false hope. Place your gun to your head and pull the trigger. Do not hesitate, or your chance for a painless death will be gone.

You do not want to know what happens to a person whom a Cazador triumphs over after they black out from pain, because what follows will neutralise the poison in exchange for a fate many, many times worse. No, I will not tell you, what I have said already is enough to spook some of the younger members of my audience.

If I were to explain, I have no doubt that even some of the adults would have nightmares over it.

I digress.

Unsurprisingly the Cazador won the day, and the two travellers moved on. I apologise for the break in our tale.

They came upon Joshua's position at the Spine, near where the Courier had first made his way into Zion. The solitary figure was observing the river beyond, binoculars making his way over the hills to the distance, where the Eyrie stood vigilant, the highest point in Zion. A short way along the river was divergent stream cut out into another splinter of the canyon, winding away downriver.

Three Marys.

"Courier, lehrendiz," the Burned Man observed without turning as they made their way to him, dropping down and sitting further down the ridge. "Our assumptions were correct. Three Marys is where the White Legs have based themselves."

"Then we don't need the Eyrie. It's too far away to have any effect on the battle if we strike hard and fast," the Courier said. "As long as we keep a strong rear force we can fight them in the narrow canyon instead of in the open where the high ground gives them a sniper's advantage."

Joshua shook his head. "Perhaps we could, but I will not assault Three Marys while they hold the Eyrie. There is something there I believe essential to our success. Something that could cut the head off the serpent if utilised correctly."

"You have my attention," the Wanderer said.

"In time. You will likely see when we have the Eyrie back in our hands and are assaulting the White Legs' primary camp," the Burned Man replied.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"Attack," Pale Omen agreed.

By now the light of morning had begun to shine on them truly, the sun rising above the walls to let its warmth spill into the valley.

"Perhaps we shall tonight then. If we take the Eyrie back it would be best if we struck for Three Marys within the same day. If we prepare the tribes for the assault and then took a small band to claim the Eyrie back prior, we might be able to synchronise the assault to great effect," Joshua thought.

"Do you think they're ready?" the Courier wondered.

Joshua sighed and leaned back a little. "No, perhaps not. But we do not have time to make them truly ready. We cannot leave the White Legs time to recover from our recent activities."

"The captives are making their way back to camp with Follows-Chalk. Maybe we should go back and prepare for a bigger assault then," the Courier suggested.

Joshua allowed his clear blue eyes to meet the Courier's. "Yes," he agreed. "Perhaps it is time for us to prepare for our strongest push."

The three men exchanged looks before making their way down the Spine. It was curious for the Courier to find himself following the same road he had taken to come into Zion again. He was a stranger to walking old roads, after all, though before his untimely end there were plenty of streets he strode down both back and forth.

He scratched the chin underneath his growing beard and looked across as Joshua, whose mind seemed ever-more on the battle now.

"Can I ask you something about Follows-Chalk?" he wondered.

"What's on your mind, Courier?" Joshua replied.

Zion continued to glow like a gemstone set in the tarnished grey of the wastes. They stepped through a nook in two neighbouring giants and continued on their way.

"He seems pretty interested in the world outside his tribe. You think maybe he'd like to venture beyond Zion and his tribe and see it?" the Courier questioned.

"I thought he might," Joshua admitted. "It's been some time since I visited… civilised places. I don't have fond memories of them. But I have always seen these places from the outside. I'd rather not influence him more than I already do."

The Courier tilted his head. "You're his hero. I don't think you've got a choice in the matter."

The Burned Man sighed. "Why don't you talk to him?"

"Me? But I'm planning to go back to the Mojave. I don't know enough about his tribe to make a call like that," the Courier rebuffed, concerned about how his opinions would impact Follows-Chalk.

"Whatever you tell him, I'm sure it will be fine," Joshua said. "I trust your judgement, Courier."

"Thanks, but wouldn't it be better coming from you?"

Joshua shook his head. "Follows-Chalk needs more guidance in his life. Just not from me."

The Courier was silent, looking across at the Burned Man.

"I fear what my influence might do to the young man. He can make his own decisions, and he need not stand in my shadow to do that. If he can make this choice without me then his answer will be the answer of a man," Joshua Graham sighed, his arm gesturing towards the river that would take them back to the camp.

"A man has question. Must seek answer," Pale Omen said awkwardly.

"Correct, Pale Omen," Joshua complimented. "You're getting better."

"Maybe I'll have to give you another shot at learning poker, eh?" the Courier chuckled.

"Teach me," the White Leg said with a grin.

Joshua and the Drifter exchanged glances. It was not what either had expected when Pale Omen had first tackled him down the hill and tried to kill him with the mantis gauntlet on his arm, but it seemed all that was happening was gradually warming the son of Salt-Upon-Wounds to a way of life outside war.

"Alright, tonight," Courier Six agreed. "We'll round up a few people and get ourselves a game going."

"Perhaps I'll join in," Joshua said thoughtfully. "It's hardly a vice to play a little game of cards."

"Now we're talking," the Drifter said enthusiastically. "I haven't had a big game of cards since that night in Vegas."

Joshua chuckled. "The city of sin. I don't believe you ever told me what brought a man as seemingly upstanding as yourself to that place."

"My apologies," the Vagabond replied, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing the platinum poker chip. "It's a complicated story, but at the heart of it all is this."

"I've seen you toying with it often," Joshua observed. "More than a simple chip I take it?"

"I was told it was some kind of data storage unit. Ultimately what it is sounds too technical for me to guess at right now, but it sounds like it's the key to New Vegas's secrets."

"I've attempted to avoid overhearing talk of the Mojave, but I must admit, Courier, you have kindled an interest, at least in matters you're involved in."

"Then I'll give you a summary of events," the Courier said, and began to tell his tale once more.

You may have heard it yourselves now. Let me start by saying the stories heard now are not the stories I heard from the man himself. Time has let those adventures become grandiose. The entire raider gang encountered before making his way to the town of 'Nipton' for example was somewhat less large. The army of prisoners who descended on Goodsprings and Primm did not resemble such a military force in the real story.

Still, the one about space ghouls hasn't actually gotten any more ridiculous. Stranger than fiction that one.

When the story had reached its end the three men were arriving back at the Dead Horses camp once more, this time with two very separate plans for the rest of the day. The first was a military plan and preparations for the real push. The second was less all-encompassing: poker night.

"I will begin preparations and assemble the tribes. We'll give them an hour before we begin," Joshua said, patting the Courier on the shoulder. "Come, lehrendiz. We have much to discuss."

"I'll be there soon then," the Wanderer said, splitting from the Burned Man's party and making his way along the beach to where Follows-Chalk usually sat, watching the water.

Today what he found instead was Waking Cloud staring blindly into the sky as she lay on her back in the sand, an apple in her hand that she had yet to summon the energy to eat.

"Hoi," the Courier said, sitting down beside her. "How are you?"

"Exhausted," Waking Cloud sighed. "I have been fighting like never before. No hunt is like this."

"Nor should it be. War is not hunting, and battle is not war. You have fought battles, but now you fight war, and this is tame by 'civilised' standards," the Drifter commented, stretching and lying down beside his ally.

"How can this be tame? This is horrible," Waking Cloud exclaimed, her eyes disbelieving as she looked over at him.

"Yes it is. But when nations clash they scar everything touched by the conflict, and unfortunately the goals are very rarely as noble as keeping one's home."

"Then why do they war?"

The Courier's face was darker then, and thoughtful. "The sins Joshua speaks of are common factors. Wrath, pride, gluttony and greed. I forget the others."

"Sloth, envy, and lust."

"Oh, well envy is definitely another reason. Lust isn't usually, but it's been known to set off chain reactions. Helen of Troy, for example."

"Who?"

"A beautiful woman who lived many years before the big sunset. A man fell in love with her and they stole away from the land she lived in, but her husband was the ruler of those lands, and he brought war to the nation she fled to in an attempt to get her back. It wasn't the sole reason for the war, but it was what set it off," the Courier explained, a paraphrase of a story from so many years ago I am not sure I could count them all.

"Love is not lust though, Courier," Waking Cloud pointed out.

"It's a component," he replied nonchalantly. "No relationship is complete without a little of that desire."

"Is that how your relationships are?" Waking Cloud chuckled.

"Don't tell me yours aren't, you've got kids," the Drifter laughed, before stopping abruptly, realising the ground he'd just tread into.

The Sorrow sat up and looked down at him, pain in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking-" he began apologetically.

Waking Cloud shook her head, reaching over and placing the apple in his hand. "It is alright. I will face what happened. He died saving our children. I cannot imagine a more noble way to die."

"Dying for love. If I were to die, that should be how I fall. Defending the one who I have given my heart," the Courier agreed, tilting his head back and looking up into the sky where dusk's fingers had begun to reach for the sun, covering the sky as it did so.

He held the apple up, looking at the deep red fruit and admiring it. Fresh apples. Only in Zion.

Follows-Chalk grabbed it from his hand with his good arm as he came to sit down in his spot. "Hoi, Courier. Still no sign of Daniel?"

"Hoi Chalk. Nothing," the Drifter replied. Since the night of the Courier's return Daniel had seemingly vanished from Zion. "I talked to Joshua. With everything that's been going on lately it's been hard to pause for a moment to speak, but I found the time eventually."

Chalk tossed the apple back. "Ya? What did he say?"

"That he doesn't think he should be the one to give you advice on this matter. He delegated me instead."

"He said that? Well, I guess you've been out there more recently than he has. So… what's your advice?" Follows-Chalk asked.

"Personally I think it's something you've gotta decide for yourself in the end, Chalk. But still, if you're curious about the world beyond then maybe you should go out and see it with your own eyes. No story is going to give you your own opinion on things, and only your own experiences will really answer your question about leaving," the Courier said after pausing to think.

"Really? You think so? Hoo! I'm going to do it," Follows-Chalk said decisively. "After all this is over, I'm going to explore civilisation!"

"Good luck to you, Follows-Chalk," Waking Cloud said warmly, smiling.

Follows-Chalk was like a child again, beaming with joy. "Dank ni, ahk iss – I never would have had the growans to ask myself."

"No worries buddy. Go out and see the world if it's what you want," the Courier said happily.

"I will," Follows-Chalk repeated. "Oh. Joshua is preparing for another speech. I assume you know, Courier?"

"Yeah. We're preparing for an assault on Three Marys," the Courier replied. "The White Legs' primary camp."

Waking Cloud took a deep breath. "It will be more than Three Marys if we attack like that."

"We're pushing the advantage. We've taken the White Legs by surprise with how strong we've been fighting back, but they've brought everything they've got into Zion. The entire tribe is here now, and we can't afford to try and fight them battle by battle anymore," the Drifter explained. "So we're going to strike hard and fast before they have a chance to organise themselves."

"It's a reckless plan," Waking Cloud said flatly.

"Yes it is. But so was agreeing to fight the White Legs. I won't have this land taken from you, Waking Cloud. The Sorrows were given Zion to make up for the darkness of man. You were the innocence that survived the world. Now you must defend your birthright."

"As you say," Waking Cloud said slowly. "Zion is our home. I would not see it taken from us."

"Then let us go. We have one more meeting, and then I told Pale Omen I'd teach him how to play poker," the Vagabond said, standing up and realising he was still holding the apple.

Waking Cloud and Follows-Chalk exchanged confused glances. "Pale Omen asked you to teach him?" Follows-Chalk wondered as they followed the Courier into the Angel cavern.

"Courier. Are you ready? Specific plans of attack will be discussed early tomorrow, before dawn, but tonight we prepare them," Joshua asked, stepping forward to meet them as they entered.

"Prepare at dusk, strike at dawn. Victory before the sun sets," the Courier replied with conviction.

"Precisely," Joshua said, turning back to the map of Zion spread out on the table. "Come, we'll discuss this with the Dead Horses and Sorrows outside."

They made their way back out into the camp and surveyed the gathered tribals. There were many of them assembled, and word would be sent to those still out scouting immediately.

"Thank you for gathering here on short notice like this. You have fought well these past few days, fighting to regain Zion, this temple on Earth. I think you for your skill and your tenacity thus far, but I'm afraid I must ask of you a little more," Joshua began.

He stepped towards the two assembled tribes. Behind him stood Follows-Chalk and Waking Cloud, and further back the Courier and Pale Omen.

"Tomorrow at dawn we will be launching our final and greatest strike on the White Legs. The decisive blow to drive them from Zion once and forever more. I would ask each and every one of you to stand with me in battle, to fight to defend the men and women you stand amongst, and their children, and their children to come after."

Follows-Chalk stepped forward. "I will stand with you, Joshua," he said loudly, his voice holding no trace of question or weakness. His resolutions made, Follows-Chalk had only one thing left to do: follow his road.

"As will I," Waking Cloud said, her voice somewhat less convinced than Follows-Chalk, not for lack of confidence in her people and their allies, but because of what she had already lost.

"Thank you, my friends," Joshua said, looking back at the two. "Our final battle will not be easy. I make no promises as to who will still be standing when all is said and done. But what I do promise is that Zion will be free of the terror visited upon it by the human scum of the White Legs."

Some of the tribals stepped forward, mirroring Waking Cloud and Follows-Chalk, and steadily more followed. They knew they would fight, but to admit to themselves and step forward was to brace themselves for the upcoming battle. Few had expected it to arrive so quickly, but Joshua was correct; waiting any longer could lose them their advantage, and that would only incur more damage in the long run.

"Prepare yourselves to defend your homes and your loved ones," Joshua said with a nod. "Before dawn comes tomorrow morning I will explain the plans, and you will prepare yourselves. When the sun shines upon you we will attack."

Pale Omen stepped in front of Joshua. "I am a stranger among you," he began. Follows-Chalk looked back at the Courier, who nodded. Joshua did the same and stepped back, letting his 'lehrendiz' speak.

"I came to you as foe. Captured enemy. White Legs do not capture enemies like Sorrows and Dead Horses. Capture and… horrible things. But these people… you people… are better people. I see the White Legs now as they are. They are well armed. Strong, bred for war. Kill, destroy. But that is not the only strength. Dead Horses strong with nobility: defend with good intent, strong ties with allies. Sorrows strong in soul; good people, kind, true."

Silence fell through the growing dusk. Nothing but the sound of the water flowing was heard.

"White Legs weak in spirit. No nobility. White Legs kill. White Legs do not sow, only take. Joshua told me when I first captured: 'White Legs are ruin without creation. No future in that'. I understand now. So I ask forgiveness for the crimes of my father. I will redeem myself. In the name of Zion."

Pale Omen turned to look back at the people gathered behind him. The Courier nodded, smiling contentedly. Follows-Chalk and Waking Cloud, though somewhat confused, smiled as well. Joshua stared at him curiously, respect and surprise at his speech mingling in his eyes, and for the duration that the stare was held in place Joshua's brilliant blue eyes seemed a little less clear.


	31. Wild Card: Double Deal

Alrighty, one last Wild Card for you before the last dance of the Second Road, and this time we're playing with both sides of the coin.

I'm pleased by all the reviews you guys are sending in, it's a great source of motivation to me!

Gufetto: Well, they can't all be winners, and I appreciate the honesty. It's a buildup chapter, hopefully this one and next week's are more enjoyable for ya!

Spartan: Legion spy? Well you oughtta like this one then!

JD: I'm planning to do exactly that, actually. I've got a timeline for Courier Six's life up to the Goodsprings shooting which I'll put up following the story's end so there's a linear progression of events that are easy to follow and understand. As it stands now the flashbacks are deliberately out of order because of how Six's mind triggers the memories. As for 'Courier' being a term that may or may not apply to Six, that's part of the story. With nothing but 'Courier' to go by he has no way to know if the 'Courier' referred to from before Benny's ambush is actually him or any other courier.

Finally, before we start, a heads up for next weekend's installment. I'm catching a plane very early Saturday morning for a holiday with my significant other. It factors in very well into the gap between story arcs, but it does mean things may be delayed for putting the chapter up. If possible I'll try and get it up on the site earlier rather than later, but forgive me if it ends up arriving on Monday or something instead, like Second Joker it's longer than the average chapter, which hopefully makes up for any wait.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Wild Card<strong>_

_**Double Deal**_

_~ The Bull ~_

_VIII_

_XII_

_MMCCLXXXVIII_

Delayed.

Unacceptable.

The Scorpion had made quick progress up Highway 95, blazing a trail through the heat of the desert, sleeping through the warmest parts of the day and pacing from dusk to dawn, eyes opening and closing on a schedule backwards to that of the typical citizen.

For days the practice had kept up, tracks in the dirt disappearing behind him in the whipping winds. A sandstorm had kept him hidden in a cave for one evening, and in his haste to return to his expected schedule he had hurried on with vigour the following evening.

The sun scorched the road by day, and when it vanished what was left became cold, colder than most humans would have dared brave before the war. But humanity was stronger now.

Some of them were, at least.

Silvius had continued on the road until he reached Novac. A brief stay there had introduced him to a few of the characters who lived there, one of which claimed to have worked with the abominations that until recently were squatting in the ruins of an ancient temple to technology. This science was dedicated to snatching the heavens, and from what the man claimed he had been the one who knew enough of its workings to help the dead ones accomplish their goals.

He'd stayed an evening there, enjoying the luxuries of the place in comparison to his normally rough lifestyle. Curtains to hide the day until finally the world was dark enough to travel once more.

The owner of the lodgings was a woman he had met before during a deal over a new pair of slaves. She smiled a lot, kept her glasses pushed as close to her eyes as she could manage, and often disappeared. She'd given him the room for free in the hopes of collecting the second half of her payment for the deal. Silvius recounted what had happened; the first slave had been murdered before she gave birth to the second. No further payment would be made.

The old woman went away acting as pleasant as she could. Flickers of anger appeared in her face from time to time as she led him to his room, but he bluntly put an end to it when she opened the door and he quietly warned her that he could have her dead on the floor of the room, rotting for days before anyone noticed she was gone, if she continued to act like she deserved even a single denarius more than she had been paid.

It was terror and pleasantries following that. The right attitude.

He was gone again quickly after, the long road and the dark night his two constant journey companions.

A burning campfire in the night had drawn his attention, and he'd found himself speaking with a tall man, wearing a large, wide-brimmed hat and strumming a guitar.

Another man without a name, a virtuoso unsure of his path to walk. Silvius had stayed and spoken with him a while, warning of the growing Legion presence and what that meant for a bard caught in wartime.

Considering the words, the man had finally decided to make his way toward Vegas in the hope that his skills were recognised and appreciated.

He'd made his way past the trading post at the highway intersection, the lights of Vegas brighter every night, until finally he could see the broken remains of the city, a suit of skeletal armour enclosed around a neon heart.

Then he'd been pulled from his course. Soldiers begging for aid, claiming a Fiend attack had brutalised them.

He hadn't had a chance to object before the gates of Freeside were replaced with Camp McCarran, and Silvius found himself tending the wounds of a soldier injured in the attack.

Two days had since passed. He found himself in the barracks that the other non-NCR personnel were tossed into, treated as if it were an honour for him to be allowed to tend their wounds.

In exchange the NCR soldier he'd been meeting with, a captain who seemed worried of his superior's every glance in his direction, had promised to try and negotiate use of the monorail, an enormous steel coffin that soared along a path into the heart of Vegas.

It had once gone to many places around the city, but the lines that dictated where it could go had long collapsed, impossible for use. The NCR had managed enough to piece the line between McCarran and the Strip back together, but even that was shaky, and any attempts to deviate were met with scepticism, and entirely ignored by those who could authorise it.

As a result he'd been operating as a medic and doctor for his stay in the NCR's Vegas-based headquarters.

The detour was not one he appreciated, given the importance of his mission in Vegas itself, but while he resented it, he could not deny that being openly invited into Camp McCarran was fortunate, and afforded him further information on the NCR, and subtle opportunities to sow the seeds of discord.

It seemed almost cliché; a few words here, emphases placed on the right word there and before long the shadows of people's minds would offer thoughts contradictory to what the propaganda and politicians had been saying.

Making them act upon it was considerably more difficult, but to plant the ideas and encourage the thoughts of insubordination opened the doors to other things in the future. If nothing else, it could cause a moment of hesitation, and for a legionary that was all it took to drive a blade home.

"So, what brings someone like you to Camp McCarran?" the woman asked as he bandaged her leg.

"A detour. My original target was the Strip, but it seems there are people in need everywhere, and these ones happened to be waving guns," Silvius replied, checking the wrap before cutting it.

She laughed. "Right, I guess it's hard to say no when the NCR starts demanding things, right?"

"Indeed. They have a habit of staking claim anywhere they can, and if objections are raised then out come the weapons," Silvius sighed. "We're done here; keep pressure off it for a few days and the stimpak will take care of the rest."

"You got it, Doc. You're sleeping in the independents barracks, right?" she asked, placing the hat back in her head.

"Regrettably," Silvius confirmed.

"Hey, it's not so bad," the woman said happily. "Could be worse, after all."

"How so?"

"You could have spent the last week hunting a Fiend leader through their territory," the woman pointed out.

"Ah yes." That story was one that had quickly circled the camp. Cook-Cook, a Fiend warlord, famed as a monster that burned victims alive and ate them, if he didn't feel like raping them somewhere in the middle. The triumphant squad had returned from what had been considered a suicide mission just before dawn.

This woman must have been the 'drunk ex-caravaneer' who made up one quarter of their winning team.  
>"So then, tell me your version of events, the story has already undergone changes since the first time it was told, I'm sure," Silvius requested.<p>

"Oh, well then you came to the right place. Nobody else has been telling things like they actually fucking happened," Rose of Sharon Cassidy, identified by the patient sheet on the table beside her, began. "We'd been sneaking through Westside for days, encountering goddamn Fiend parties like they had another California hidden down in Vault 3, fighting them off one after the other. The guy leading us, Ranger Morgan? Guy's an idiot, had us lost and going in circles. Urban sprawl was too much for him."

"You kept going anyway, though?"

"Yeah, the guy who runs the place hates Morgan's guts, and he refused to go home empty handed. We'd taken one of the mercenaries with us, that two-bit piece of crap Little Buster. The guy knew about Cook-Cook, he recognised some of the landmarks in the area and got us back on track. Don't let Morgan tell you otherwise, that bastard was fucking lost," Rose continued.

"Alright, as you say," Silvius chuckled.

"We came up on the camp after a little longer on the road. Some old building with the roof caved in turned into a fortress. Concrete pushed up to block the windows, a mounted machine gun stuck on top of the wall, and the whole building scorched like it'd been set on fire. Then somebody had actually bothered to go and paint fire all over it afterwards," Rose continued.

"Shall I presume Cook-Cook's flame fetish was no lie?" the spy continued jovially, keeping an appropriate amount of friendliness in his tone.

"Oh you can believe it. Out back there was a Brahmin pen filled with burning corpses. Beside that was a separate pen with just one of the beasts sitting in it. See, Cook-Cook's a real weird guy. Apparently he absolutely adored this Brahmin. Little Buster was telling us how he thought it was more important than the Fiends. Hell, if it was a woman he might have even respected it enough to do something other than cook and rape her," Rose went on.

"Whatever the reasons for that psychopath loving the Brahmin, Little Buster said that if we did anything to that beast it'd set Cook-Cook off like a stick o' dynamite. Capture it and he'd probably go and kill the other Fiend leaders if we promised not to hurt her. Kill her, and woah baby."

"Interesting. An incredibly deep psychological attachment to an animal. I'm no psychologist, but I'm sure there are a number of conditions that could be symptomatic of. Do go on," the spy continued.

"We took Buster's advice and went after the fucking animal, sneaking around to try and come in behind the shed. When he mentioned using one Fiend leader to kill two Morgan and Spades' eyes lit up like a Vegas slot reel, and that was the plan from then on."

"I'm sure it went every bit as well."

"We found Cook-Cook before we found the rest of the Fiends. Sitting there brushing the damn thing's hair and singing it lullabies. I don't think I've ever seen something so horrifying, we snuck in there and he was sitting there with a brush in one hand and someone's burnt arm in the other. Brushing 'Queenie's' hair with one hand, chowing down with the other. I don't need to tell you which arm was doing what."

The Fiends were degenerates. All they did was rape, enslave, and murder. Yet the NCR had the gall to say that Caesar's Legion was essentially the same thing. They'd see the difference when Arizona swept into the Mojave and ran it properly, in ways the NCR would never accomplish.

"When he spotted us he went for the flamethrower he was wearing, and we started shooting. Everybody panicked. Me and Morgan ran, taking cover behind the shed. Spades was first recon, he'd stayed back to give us cover. Little Buster actually ran _at_ the guy, arms covered in knives swinging. Heard him kill the Brahmin from the other side of the wall. Heard Cook-Cook burning him to cinders too. Stupid prick got himself killed just to take out a Brahmin. But holy fuck did it do what he said it'd do.

"Cook-Cook burst out of the shed screaming like he was on fire. Roaring the Brahmin's name. One of the Fiends ran up to him to see what was wrong and the guy grabbed him and… shit, he actually tore the guy's throat out with his teeth. Just grabbed him sunk his teeth right in and… eugh."

Cannibalism. The consumption of human flesh by a human. Another practice the NCR thought the Legion was a part of, simply because unlike the Californians the Legion were aware that war was not a game played with pretensions of making it as pleasant as possible for all involved parties.

If war was to be the grotesque dark side of man's psyche, then what good what is to wrap it in a shawl and claim it be glorious? The glory was in victory. The purity was undiluted blood. Men did not go to war in the misguided belief that they would be remembered a hero. Every man among the Legion went to war expecting it to kill them, but determined to see as many foes fall before them, as many victories grasped in bloodied hands, and as much prosperity brought to Caesar's lands as possible before the inevitable occurred.

On the battlefield men were anonymous pawns. Those who had distinguished themselves were hardly any better. A rarer breed of chess piece, a seldom seen knight or bishop, but still replaceable. Only the king and their queen, the president and their general, the emperor and their legate, the god and their prophet truly mattered to the world.

History remembered for a moment the names of those who served them, but the pawns beneath were just grains of sand in the desert.

"So what happened after that?" the frumentarius wondered.

"All hell broke loose. Cook-Cook must have been high on something, because when he started burning the other Fiends alive they fired back, and he took a few rounds in the chest like he was made of metal," Rose continued.

"So he actually turned and attacked his allies?"

"Anything nearby. He swatted at a bug like it'd killed his damn family, and then sprayed fire everywhere just to kill it. Everything he saw he fucking killed. So, we just let him go nuts for a while, taking cover. Eventually it went quiet and we crept up to the building as it burned to find him. He was crying, looking for something to kill. When he saw us he actually started talking like he was a goddamn child. Telling us Queenie was dead and that he had to make everyone go and keep her company."

"He was insane," Silvius said flatly.

"We already knew that. Seeing it in action like that was just creepy though. Morgan, fuckwit that he is, actually tried telling the crazy bastard that he should go and keep the Brahmin company himself. Dressed it up a bit, but Cook-Cook saw through it started screaming like he was on fire. Richard and I didn't stick around long enough to find out; if we got some distance there'd be no way he'd get us. Bullets travel further than fire."

"And that's how you killed him? Let him chase you right into your gun sights?"

"Near enough. He came charging out screaming, and Ten of Spades, who I hear got promoted to Jack after that, nailed him right in the heart," Rose finished. "Left the head intact so Morgan had something to bring home. Then booked it like there was no tomorrow before someone showed up to see what all the noise was about."

"So now you can plant Cook-Cook's head on a stick like the Legion does and stand it in the streets for all the Fiends to see?" Silvius wondered with a hint of ironic glee in mind.

Rose laughed loudly. "NCR thinks they're such holy soldiers. That'll make 'em fuckin' pause!"

Silvius realised he'd been unconsciously walking with her, autopilot talking care to not make him seem suspicious by suddenly falling away from the conversation. It was something that could be written off as being antisocial or a simple eccentricity, but it wasn't worth the risk.

They'd arrived back at the independent's barracks, where he'd been told he was sleeping when he first arrived. The unremarkable old hangar repurposed to house the misfits who drifted into McCarran and were allowed entry.

"It seems your story kept me interested," Silvius said with a fake smile. "I've wandered away from my post, though I suppose it wasn't much of one to begin with."

"Take a load off then, doc!" Rose of Sharon Cassidy offered, making a beeline for a bottle of alcohol sitting at an unoccupied table.

The hangar was like an open mess hall, with tables dotted around that could be pulled back in the event of a larger gathering, and someone had set up a bar in the back corner, profiting from the listless desire for intoxication that being stuck at McCarran seemed to breed amongst people.

Rose was a natural drunk though, that much was well known, and as she promptly tore the cork from the bottle of wine she'd found and started drinking. Seeing Silvius' confusion, she paused and offered him the bottle.

"I don't drink," he replied simply.

"Your loss," she managed, placing it back on her lips and consuming even more of the toxic liquid, willingly forfeiting her mental capabilities.

A curious existence. The NCR preached the crimes the Legion committed, yet ignored that they happily sold intoxicants that slowly killed those who consumed them. They even advocated them, encouraging their citizens to make themselves dumber in the name of feeling good for a few hours.

Another folly of California.

"There you are," came someone else's voice, bringing Silvius out of his mental scorn. "I thought you were being patched up."

A ranger was approaching, a man with sharp features and a goatee underneath his green eyes and blonde hair that had started reaching down to the base of his neck. Slung over his back was the assault rifle he'd used to slay a number of Fiends in the previous days, and perched atop his head was the stiff hat the rangers famously wore.

"Finished. There's the sawbones that did it. Few stitches and one o' them stimpaks and I'm right as fucking rain," Rose replied, draining another third of the wine.

"Well good. We're not sticking around long. Making our way to Vegas next," the ranger explained. "Oliver got to put me on his mission and I showed Mr. Wait-and-See that I'm just that motherfuckin' good, so now Hsu's putting me on the mission he wanted me on."

"Is that top secret, or shall I let my curiosity run free?" Silvius asked with a small smile.

The ranger looked him up and down. "Aren't you the doctor that's working here for a ride to the Strip?"

"The very same," the spy said. "You have news?"

"Indeed. You're coming with me," the ranger said pleasantly. "We're taking the monorail, and they decided your service has been enough to earn a ride."

At last the pointless help he had been giving was rewarded with a chance to leave. There were other spies in McCarran, any information Silvius was likely to come up with was information one of the other frumentarii could find instead. Now he could go to the Strip and Freeside and begin his work in earnest.

"S'pose I'm coming with," Rose said, slumping back in her seat as the alcohol began to work its magic on her brain, further enfeebling her mind.

"Well you did help. And besides, for all the hate talk, I can't help but feel like the Strip would be just what we need to get over all the belligerent sexual tension you're projecting towards me, Cass," the ranger said with a grin.

"Morgan, go fuck yourself sideways with a thermic lance," Rose spat.

Both men winced at the idea. Superheated spears, essentially. "I'm going to go with a big, chunky 'no' pie for that one, Cassidy. Now grab your things and let's rock and roll before I decide to call you sexy. Assuming the doctor has no objections I'd like to get on with it without much of a delay. Every second I'm here is another second Oliver can decide he hates me enough to send me after Driver Nephi or Violet, and I don't fancy playing tag with a pack of dogs as well as all those smiling Fiends," ranger Morgan explained.

"And here I heard you were overconfident," Silvius said, an eyebrow raised.

"Oh don't get me wrong, I know I _could_, but I'd rather let someone else do it. Have you heard the stories about Violet? An entire pack of dogs, completely loyal and just as psychotic as her! I couldn't put down that many animals; it'd make me feel bad."

"You call me sexy and so help me, Richard, I'll show you sexy," Rose warned, getting to her feet and shaking her fist.

The ranger looked from her fist to her, then back to her fist. Then, as she looked towards her room, Silvius noticed his gaze dropped and then shot back up. "I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing," Richard said, confused.

"You don't want to find out," Rose warned.

"But that's the thing, I don't know if I do. If you want me Cass you've gotta throw yourself harder," he replied.

She glared at him in a way that might have set him on fire had her eyes not been swimming in alcohol, and then disappeared through one of the doors leading towards the bedrooms, leaving the two men standing in the hangar alone amongst the few others.

"So, what're you going to the neon city for?" Morgan wondered, taking a seat.

Silvius decided there was no harm in doing the same. His bedroom was bare. Anything he needed to take with him was already on his person, so no packing was necessary. "I asked you first," he parried.

"You did? Oh, you did," Morgan realised, leaning back. "Essentially I'm going to track down the Courier."

Information. Dig.

"Wasn't he the man that killed one of the Strip lords? Benny of the Chairmen, wasn't it?" Silvius asked, displaying his knowledge in a friendly manner while simultaneously asking a question that functioned as a gate to deeper knowledge.

"Right there in the Strip too. Killed him in his suite at one of the hotels after a pretty impressive scene right in the street. Managed to disappear without a trace afterwards," Morgan replied, telling the story as it was generally known.

"Even though the NCR made a surprisingly strong effort to hunt him down. Seemed an awful big disruption, especially given House's rules about NCR on the Strip. Something different about this courier, other than his talents at tracking?"

"I don't know, actually," Morgan admitted.

Dead end. Try and get information on a different subject.

Morgan went on before he could try, providing a surprising spring of knowledge despite claiming ignorance. "The details of why they were after him seem to have something to do with a couple of crimes in California. Resisting arrest and two counts of kidnapping, multiple homicides… I mean, they're crimes, but the NCR really, _really_ fucked House off with that situation, and I don't see how it was worth it."

"Maybe he did something else in California," Silvius considered, crossing his arms on the table. "Perhaps the floating eye with him contains more secrets than he advertises."

The ranger looked over at him. "You know about ED-E, huh? Yeah, that thing's pretty suspicious."

"ED-E, yes, that's the name. Can't say I cared for it," Silvius agreed.

"Oh, met him as well?" the ranger asked with a chuckle.

"We ran into each other on the road, yes. No indication that he feared the NCR though, he was fresh out of solving one of their problems. I suppose it's likely he's forgotten whatever they were after him for anyway. No clues?" the frumentarii said, deflecting the conversation back towards the courier's past crimes instead of into where it was their paths crossed.

"The best I've got is that he was seen at the Divide on multiple occasions."

The Divide. The legend was quieter than the stories about the Big Empty, the Ciphers, or the Sierra Madre, but that was perhaps because of its roots in reality. While many other legends were outlandish tales of Pre-War insanity, the Divide was very much something of the new world, and that scared people.

"Hardly substantial evidence. Certainly not enough to justify breaking Strip law like they did," the scorpion thought aloud.

"Beats me," the ranger said with a shrug. "But if I find him I'll ask him. Apparently they want him taken to the Strip embassy for a chat with one of the politicians."

"Hm," Silvius replied simply.

The NCR had their sights set on seizing the asset as well. If Benny's death was a situation the Courier could repeat with a new target, the Legion would prefer he aim at NCR personnel. Careful planning could see a single mail man crush the NCR's commanding officer. That would make Morgan feel better, surely. The death of General Oliver would be a great victory to Caesar, and yet another stone removed from the foundation of the NCR's foundations.

But those were the kind of plans that could come after the NCR had failed to convince the Courier to side with them against the Legion, and he proudly wore a bull on his back.

Rose reappeared with a tattered old pack on her back. It clinked with the sound of bottles full of something that was most certainly not water. "Let's get moving then. I can't wait to see if that shining shithole is really as great as people say."

"Care to accompany us, doctor?" Morgan asked. "You haven't packed yet, but we'll wait."

"No need," Silvius replied. "I travel light."

Morgan grinned and hoisted his gun over his shoulder. "And I'm a commando. Let's roll, then."

The three stepped out of the independent barracks, Rose and Silvius bidding it a grateful farewell, and made their way towards the enormous terminal that made up the NCR's largest headquarters in the region, once serving as a nexus for travellers to pass through on their way to other destinations.

With the monorail operating it could function as such once more.

"So, ranger. Rose here tells me the slaying of Cook-Cook was quite the affair," the spy said.

"Rose? Oh, you mean Cass. She been telling you the story? I bet she changed it to be as unflattering towards me as possible."

"Not like you really did anything," Rose said flatly.

"I killed a Fiend leader. I'd call that relatively impressive, thanks," the ranger replied. "Bet she ignored that I was the one who did it."

"I believe she claimed your sniper did," the spy said.

"Ten of Spades? Sorry, Jack after that performance. Nah, he saved my ass, but I struck the killing blow," the ranger said proudly. "That guy's a hell of a sniper, but there was no way he could have made that shot, Cook-Cook was behind the wall."

"Well then what happened?" Silvius wondered.

Richard grinned. Rose rolled her eyes. "Well we'd been fighting our way through the city for days. Fiends left and right, crawling out of buildings like there was no end to them. Between the four of us; that's me, Cass here, Jack of Spades who was our first recon sniper, and Little Buster, the mercenary who didn't make it back. We got turned around a few times chasing Fiends back to their hiding holes and wiping them out, so it took a little longer, but we eventually got to Cook-Cook's fiery fortress."

"Indeed?"

"Here it comes."

"It was an office building covered in depictions of flame, the walls burned and scorched. The windows had been covered, though some of them had instead just been closed with barbed wire, leaving enough room for the mounted machine guns to peer through. Must have been about three poking out of each side of the building, all on different floors. Just outside there was a pen with Brahmin, one of them Cook-Cook's beloved 'Queenie'. I don't know exactly what sort of relationship the two had, but Little Buster assured me it wasn't wholesome."

"God you're a fuckwit," Rose sighed. "It wasn't like that at all."

"Nor was it as lacklustre as you make it sound, Cass, so shut up and let me tell a good story," the ranger spat back. "Anyway, so yeah, it was a big place, safe to say. I figured we'd take his pet hostage and force him to come out and give himself in. Little Buster said he was so in love with the cow he'd actually do it. Didn't expect him to actually be there with her at the time."

"Ah yes, Rose informed me," Silvius said.

"Most people call me Cass," Rose pointed out.

"What's wrong with Rose?" the spy wondered.

It took her a few moments. "It sounds weird," she said eventually.

Silvius tried looking a little upset. "But it sounds so pretty," he said, mentally questioning what he was actually doing.

"Do I look pretty to you?" Rose demanded.

"Well, yes," the frumentarius lied.

She promptly shut up, attempting to reply before realising exactly what had been said.

Morgan grabbed the chance and interrupted the interruption, returning to his story. "I pointed a gun at the cow and told him to help us clear out the Fiends inside the fortress so that the NCR could take it or I'd kill the two-headed animal. We made him trot her out into the field so that the Spades could pick her off any time Cook-Cook tried to turn against us, and then we assaulted the fortress of fire with one of the Fiend leaders working alongside us!"

Rose made no move to correct the story and remained silent and fairly drunk.

"Between his flamethrower, Cass' shotgun, and my mighty weapon, the lovely miss Fortune here, we tore that place apart," Richard said, hoisting his assault rifle up on his shoulder once again. "Most of the way up Cook-Cook, who'd been silent up until then, decided that enough was enough, and he tried to turn on us. Never trust a Fiend, doctor. Not that I should have to tell you that."

"Oh really? I thought they were such good people," the spy said sarcastically.

"Oh yeah, class acts," Richard laughed. "Nothing subtle about it at all. Just turned around and tried to set us no fire. I blasted him in the chest with the rest of a clip, emptying a good twenty bullets into his front. Murdered that bastard cold, then went ahead and took out the rest of his cronies. Radioed Spades as we went, told him to get rid of Queenie, just as one last 'fuck you' to that pyromaniac bastard."

"Sounds like an impressive adventure. And a victory for the NCR, no less. What about Little Buster? You said he didn't make it back," Silvius pointed out.

"Oh, right," Morgan said, followed by a fake sigh. "When Cook-Cook turned on us, Buster was the one who got it. Torched completely, by the time the fire was out he was already dying. It was all I could do to just end it quickly for the poor guy."

Disregarding an ally, even one of limited use, with such a desire to further aggrandise himself. Morgan had come to the Mojave to find glory, that much was blatantly clear, but his ability to coldly ignore the death of one who had fought alongside him, even if only briefly, was a quality the NCR claimed it did not have.

Not that the NCR's claims had ever been truthful, mind.

They passed through security, with the ranger leading and explaining the situation, presenting the letter of consent authored by Colonel Hsu.

The timid officer who Silvius had originally tried negotiating with gave him a nervous smile as the spy passed him on his way to board the monorail.

Today there weren't many people. Four officers in the front, who Morgan made his way to join after a few moments, leaving Rose and Silvius to find themselves alone on the last compartment, where the non-NCR personnel sat, with two compartments with a few scattered soldiers between them and Richard.

The enormous metallic bullet lurched into motion after a few moments, the sleek silver gliding over the rail with increasing speed. Silvius was happy to farewell not just the barracks but the NCR's nest as well, regardless of whatever information he might have gleaned. If they were happy enough to throw it away to roaming doctors then the frumentarii who were actually part of the hierarchy would be drowning in more information than they needed to sabotage the whole establishment.

Sitting back in his seat, Silvius let out a sigh, looking forward to stepping into the city of sin and beginning another round.

He glanced at Rose, who seemed to have her intoxicated eyes on him with more concentration than usual. "Did you mean that?" she asked.

"Of course," Silvius lied again.

She lunged at him.

_~ The Bear ~_

_Date: 12-08-81_

"So finally, after we've gone through three floors barbequing Fiends, he decided now's his chance to turn and make an attempt to take us out. Little Buster catches it, getting burned to a crisp in moments. Poor bastard was dead in moments, but while Cass panicked I was quick to step in.

"Fortune here's a real beauty, and when she's loaded she'll take a man out without much trouble. But before I did I made sure to radio Ten of Spades and tell him Cook-Cook wasn't complying. Had the volume up as high as I could so that Cook-Cook heard the sniper shot even over the sounds of carnage around us."

"Oooh, that's cold," one of the men said.

"You've gotta be cold when you're dealing with a psychopathic firestarter," Richard said with a grin.

A couple of the soldiers laughed. A few groaned. "So what happened next?" another asked.

He'd been making his way through the compartments. The officers had been interested in hearing the story, and the soldiers in the car behind them had eagerly requested it as soon as Morgan made his way back to go and check on Cass and the doctor.

Happy to spread his legends, Morgan had first recounted the story of his assault on the prison and how it had ended with his plan to blow up the explosives stored underneath, and now he was reaching the end of the amazing tale of how Richard Morgan killed Cook-Cook, featuring Rose of Sharon Cassidy, Jack of Spades, and the late Little Buster.

"He started screaming and carrying on, then moved to attack us again. Cass is screaming and running away to reload her shotgun, but me and Fortune just looked at him, and she started talking. When she talks, people listen. Cook-Cook listened alright. Opened up his rib-cage and laid some pretty hefty criticism right into his heart. One Fiend leader down, courtesy of yours truly," Richard finished. "Of course we finished clearing out the building too. Too deep in Fiend territory to do much with it though, so I made sure to take out the mounted gattling guns so it's not a problem next time."

"That's quite impressive," one of the soldiers said.

"That's fucking awesome!" said another.

"I don't buy it," stated a third.

Richard beamed. "Believe it or not, Cook-Cook is dead, and I'm the one responsible for it. Let's see General Wait-and-See tell me I'm useless now!"

"Wait-and-See?"

"Haven't heard that one? Oliver's well earned nickname. I'm sure you don't need me to explain what it refers to," the ranger explained.

There was a ding over the speakers, mingled with static, before a voice began to speak through them. "We're now arriving at the Strip. Please be prompt in disembarking the train and enjoy your stay in the jewel of the Mojave."

The ranger leaned over to look out the narrow window and saw the ruined cityscape stop at the edge of the highly fortified walls that bordered a heart of neon lights and streets patrolled by the blue and grey robot Securitrons.

Then the walls of the NCR embassy took over and they pulled into the station, the brilliant buildings of Vegas replaced with the golden brown walls of the NCR's only foothold in this place.

When finally the train had stopped entirely the doors slid open with a hiss, and the ranger stepped out into New Vegas' centrepiece.

He paused before the doors into the building itself, raising his hand to high-five a few soldiers as they passed him.

Cass and the doctor stepped out of the last compartment and strode towards him. The doctor seemed dishevelled, his coat ruffled and not over his shoulders quite right, and a bemused look sat on his face as he scratched his brown hair and pushed his glassed back up his nose.

Cassidy didn't look any different, which was to say she was already dishevelled.

The ranger's response was immediate.

"Dude," he said, looking at the doctor with an eyebrow cocked.

The doctor simply coughed loudly and walked past the ranger without another word.

Ranger Morgan turned and looked at Cass. "Dude," he repeated.

"Oh what do you fucking care?" Cass spat, walking past him and following the doctor.

"This day is awesome," the ranger said to himself, laughing and trailing both. "I think, anyway."

Making their way through the embassy, Richard exchanged a few words with the receptionist and found that his meeting with Ambassador Crocker would wait until the following day.

NCR personnel were not allowed to wear weapons on the Strip, after the Benny fiasco even the military personnel who had been allowed simple batons had been forcibly removed from the street.

Fortune as he'd come to call it would have to remain safely in his locker, along with his other weapons. Even his knife was left. House had cracked down hard, and disobedience would put cracks in what was already thin ice.

Not long later he stepped out onto the street. The sun had descended far enough since their arrival for the Strip's lights to truly shine.

Darkness was blanketing the sky, but to Vegas it was still broad daylight. Light shone from every nook and cranny. Vault 21 rose into the air, advertising itself. A large building with the huge neon sign 'Michael Angelo's Workshop' was sitting opposite the embassy.

Securitrons with stern police faces rolled along the street, machineguns for one hand and laser blasters for other in an odd fusion of conventional and more scientific weaponry.

High above it was the enormous spire that no living being had set foot inside for two centuries: the Lucky 38. House's seat of power, high above the mortals of the Mojave, a throne in the heavens for a man (if indeed he was a man) who believed himself above their existence.

The city of lights, of sin, and of second chances welcomed the ranger with a luminous display and the promise of a bright new day, in the literal sense at very least.

The doctor and Cass had wandered ahead, and as the ranger approached he saw another group had found them, a shout of exclamation from a woman followed by the two parties meeting to form one group standing in the street.

The woman speaking with the doctor was wearing a black top with a pair of grey jeans. Her wavy red hair flowed from her head beautifully, and her green eyes were looking at the doctor with surprise and happiness.

"Rachel, I'm surprised to see you here!" the doctor said happily, embracing her. "I'm sure there's a good story behind it."

"You'd better believe it," said the woman standing behind 'Rachel' said. She was dressed in some kind of robe, clean and a little stiff, as though it had recently been washed. Floating beside her was the courier's companion, the 'floating eye' ED-E.

"I see you know the courier," Richard said, approaching the group.

Rachel looked across at him and smiled pleasantly. "Hello," she introduced. "Rachel. I'm a Follower of the Apocalypse, like Aaron here. We used to work together at the outpost in the train yard before I came here."

"Veronica. I'm… a tourist! Here with my inherited pet ball ED-E," the robed woman said with a big smile.

"Richard Morgan. This is my sidekick Cassidy," the ranger replied. "So how'd you come to acquire ED-E there?"

Cassidy shot him a nasty look that told him to never call her a sidekick again. Richard made a mental note to always introduce her as such.

"It's a long story," Veronica chuckled.

"As is the one about your exploits here, I'm sure," Aaron said to Rachel. "Perhaps we should find somewhere to sit down and swap stories?"

"Alright, but I warn you, Veronica and I share a common theme," Rachel said.

"Oh don't worry, I do believe ours share the very same theme," Aaron replied jovially.

Courier Six.


	32. May my Hand Forget its Skill

Well since I'm going to be busy come the weekend and I've got it all written down, how about we just get this finale right on out of the way? I'll see about putting an epilogue up some time over the break between story arcs, but for now here's what we've got!

I'm glad Silvius is a well-received character. I'm working with what I've got and enjoying the chance to portray the Legion in a light other than what most of the game unfortunately ended up doing with them. The extra notes about what could have been and what ended up getting cut I've dug up in my love for New Vegas helped me get a better grip on the faction, and hopefully that's going to continue translating well into not just Silvius but all the Legion across the story.

I spent a while considering whether or not to have him team up with Boone for some dark irony, but ultimately decided that it simply wouldn't be something Silvius would do; putting himself that close to an NCR loyalist without any actual ties or intel to the NCR would be restricting and a waste of time, so in the end it's not in the character to do it.

As for Silvius' connections, well... we might have spotted him earlier than Honest Hearts.

Any questions about the last chapter and the arc in general, feel free to ask and I'll see about replying to all of them when the epilogue appears. Being that I'm on holiday though, there's no specific time that'll happen.

But enough stalling!

* * *

><p><strong><em>May my Hand Forget its Skill<em>**

We have spent some time here, me telling this tale of the Zion crusade, of the men and women who took part. You listening, sometimes asking questions, pondered quietly or wondered aloud. Sometimes gasping in surprise. Fright, on the odd occasion. I see understanding light up pairs of eyes with uneven timing, bursts of knowledge unlocked all at once between numbers of you or the spark of a quick learner.

It has been a joy to stand before all of you again like I did those years prior, and to rekindle the tales of old. To remind you all of what was and what could be. And now, finally, we've reached the last piece of the story.

It earned a simple name, one that encompassed the struggle that unfolded there: the Battle of Zion. The end of the crusade.

Dawn broke as the last night of calm before the storm slipped quietly away, hiding itself in the face of the coming sins. Within the Angel cave sat a collection of cards, a poker game in progress that had been abandoned as rest claimed its players.

Each hand was face down, unseen. The future of the individual was hidden. Four cards had been turned up, waiting for the fifth to complete the game. It might have spelled victory one of the players, it might have been meaningless.

Now it was unimportant.

The fire of war burned in Zion.

Attacks had surged forward across Zion. The White Legs retaliated. The Dead Horses pushed. Once again the Narrows became the site of a stand against the invaders, this time drawing them into traps and baiting their forces to let their overconfidence undo them. Waking Cloud had chosen to return there to hold the defences once more, and this time to hold them for good.

The North Fork Bridge had become another place revisited by the conflict, gunfire and grenades ripping apart the bridge, even after it had been rebuilt.

The Sun Sentinels had become a major battle site, with the small camp of Dead Horses in the high places of the rocky guardians desperately fighting back a fearsome horde of the White Legs who had come down upon the place with incredible force.

The brutal anti-material rifles tore apart the cover they hid behind, pushing them further back into hiding.

Joshua had chosen to assist them there, leading his group of the Dead Horses and Sorrows, mixed together as one tribe for the moment, to save their allies and ensure that the Sun Sentinels stood strong. From there he would make his way down to the Aerie and meet with Pale Omen.

Follows-Chalk had elected to be a part of one of the two primary offensives, making his way along the road to the Spine with a host of Dead Horses and fighting his way to the Happy Trails ambush site. From there they could flank the White Legs when the push for Three Marys began.

Courier Six had chosen to travel without leading any tribals, a pack on his back intended to be his only companion as he journeyed, though despite that he found himself trailed by Pale Omen, the former White Leg, like the Courier, an outsider to the plight of the Dead Horses and Sorrows even as he desired to help.

And it was a true desire now. More than the adolescent desire to surpass his father, stronger than the lust for battle bred into him.

Pale Omen was to protect Zion as well.

Travelling alone sans each other, the two had navigated along the river, making their way through the caves at its edge and firing shots into the battles as they passed.

A skirmish between a Sorrow and a White Leg was taking place in the shallows of a camp ground as they passed. The enormous bear claw the Sorrow wielded was taking swipes at one of the mantis gauntlets the White Legs loved. Both had cut each other, blood dripping into the water around them as they struck and dodged.

The White Legs obeyed no rules of engagement, and Courier Six did not give to them what they would not give in return. A bullet punctured the White Leg's torso, and another through the shoulder sent him stumbling backwards, falling into the water.

The Sorrow looked at him and gave him a solemn nod as the saviour in the grey coat walked past, the tattered edge now replaced with the stitching and designs of the Dead Horses, marking their custom on him, and his struggles alongside them forever a part of him.

Then the Sorrow fell upon the still conscious White Leg and thrust the claw straight into his throat, a grim determination on her face as she brought the number of those who threatened her home down by another life.

As they neared the Virgin River's nexus at the base of the spine a loud crack exploded through the air, and a body toppled from a cliff face into the waters below.

A sniper for the White Legs perched atop another of the cliffs.

"Death from afar," Pale Omen hissed.

The Courier pulled his ally behind the nearest piece of cover; an old tree with a thick trunk, another curious relic of happier times that continued to bear fruit.

Peering from his hiding place he searched the ridge for the signs of a sniper, but from his hiding place low in the valley there was little he could see. The sniper might not have been at the edge, instead looking out at the opposite cliffs and no danger at all.

To assume so would be foolish though, a ticket to an instantaneous death.

It is a dark thing to admit, but the best chance he had to see the sniper's location was the next time he fired upon one of his allies.

Eventually, inevitably, it happened; another loud crack, echoing with intensity unparalleled by the other gunshots throughout the valley. Someone screamed, but the flare of light as the bullet was expelled told Courier Six exactly where the sniper was.

Taking a deep breath he motioned for Pale Omen to follow, and both of them bolted for the opposite side of the river, slipping through the water as quickly as they could. The Courier held his pack close to his back, slipped under his coat so it was no longer visible save an abnormal bulge at the back of his right ribs.

The sniper was closer than he had first believed, the barrel of the rifle protruding just barely through a hollowed tree log, but because of the hiding place the sniper had chosen it left him with a very limited ability to see the shores from which the Courier and his pale companion were approaching, instead focusing on the higher ground which ran up towards the Aerie.

From there he could see everything from Dagger's Point up the river.

It couldn't be left alone. No sniper for the White Legs could be, they were far too dangerous.

"We need to get up there," the Courier growled as they approached the cliff face.

They could not go further south; it would have placed them too close to the entrance to Three Marys. Too early and the White Legs' defence would solidify around their primary camp, and besides, no matter what anybody tells you, the Courier alone was not enough to slay the White Legs.

Further up would slowly place them in the sniper's sights. A dangerous situation that could have them lying face down in the river, entire limbs cleaved off by the force of the weapons.

How many hellish items could man concoct to slay one another? These were still far from the worst.

Pale Omen grinned. "Rifle ready," he instructed.

The Courier did as instructed, confused. "How am I supposed to hit him from here?" he wondered, slipping his handgun into its holster and drawing the rifle upon his back.

The outsider let out a shriek and threw himself backwards into the water, allowing it to carry him up and then slowly down the river, towards the sniper's view.

For a few moments there was nothing. Pale Omen floated silently down the river as though he was just another of the fallen, and on his back the enormous and bloody tattoo of the Old World flag could not be seen, leaving him a body in the water similar to any of his former brothers.

The sniper was foolish enough to check over the ledge, crawling forward and peering over before realising the man in the coat was waiting. A bullet, nothing like the kind he wielded but still more than enough for the job, whizzed into his face.

His fingers tensed as he died, and the weapon fired the only round it could hold at any given time, the piece of metal exploding in the water metres upstream while the barrel that launched it tumbled down the rock face, free from the hands of the corpse that now slumped over it.

Snatching it from the air as he moved down the river, the Courier hoisted it over his shoulder, making sure it could not simply be claimed by another White Leg.

The enormously long barrel was topped with a scope, a far-seeing eye that pinpointed where the enemy was far away.

All the better to kill without being seen.

Heard, however, was another matter entirely. Such a huge weapon was incapable of being silenced without drastically reducing its capabilities. But then, from such a distance the sound was small worry, the user would have enough time to reload the single shell it could take and try again if they failed, and even when successful they'd have time to slip away unnoticed.

He tossed it to Pale Omen as they made their way further up, reaching a narrow inlet that had been worn away for many years by the waterfall flowing through it, now no longer a straight fall but a slope which, with some difficulty, could be climbed.

They started the ascent, careful to keep their hands on the wall to hold themselves steady as the water pushed and shoved to send them back down into the pool they had slipped past on their way up, carefully avoiding the deep and hugging the rock walls.

"Stop!" snarled a tribal voice as they reached the top. Guns aimed, standing at the edge of the water, were two White Legs, blood in their eyes and a willingness to kill easy to read in their faces.

Pale Omen was quick to seize the situation. "Puo illevo eun pringion!" he spat.

"Sus liegan!" one of the White Legs retorted, turning his aim on Pale Omen. "Traitor!"

His gamble was never going to be as successful as he might have liked, but the added attention Pale Omen enjoyed meant the Courier could quickly slip his second gun from beneath his coat, and with both weapons unleash a burst of fire into the unsuspecting White Legs.

They fell back, dazed and wounded, as Pale Omen pursued their dropping forms and ensured their deaths, the gauntlet on his arm opening their throats even as the Courier, adrenaline in his veins, moved on towards his destination. A few moments later Pale Omen, torso splattered with blood, joined him.

The Red Gate loomed before them, behind the enemy's front lines, its stony arch guarding a secondary route away from the Three Marys.

Keeping low they dashed from cover to cover, but it seemed that the White Legs were busy fighting elsewhere, and for the moment the Red Gate remained unguarded.

The way that wound up to its peak stood at the back, on the side from which the White Legs could come, making it a strong defensive position, and as they neared they realised that they were beginning to set up a defence their.

Keeping quiet as they moved up to the edge of the stone, the Courier began his work, slipping along the rock face and picking the best places.

He handed Pale Omen one of his pistols as he moved to ensure the warrior had enough ammunition to go with the weapon Joshua had given him; another of the New Canaan weapons, designed long ago by one of their own faith.

The narrow passage under the arch was difficult to time correctly; a number of White Legs were making their way back and forth, though none stepped out towards the conflict, it meant being spotted would be difficult to avoid.

Picking his moment as best he could, the Courier bolted across the gap, flattening himself against the wall on the other side and staying silent.

He heard a grunt of dull surprise and let loose a sigh, making his way further back, trying as best as he could to disappear into the stone, selecting a spot behind a protrusion of the stone and hoping he would not be seen beyond it.

A White Leg stepped under the arch and searched the area. His eyes glanced around the area and found a body slumped against the stone wall. A White Leg body, possibly still alive, torso covered in blood from some unknown wound.

He dashed over to him.

"Fhedo!" he yelled, kneeling in front of the body and examining it closer.

A quick inspection of the body revealed no wounds that could explain as much blood as what covered Pale Omen. The surprise didn't last long enough to exclaim, as the mantis gauntlet tore through yet another jugular, spilling more blood over Pale Omen and wiping another life from the ranks of the foe's ranks.

He let the body slump against him, his hands going to the guns and leaving the open wound in the neck to ooze gore over him.

When three more White Legs emerged from the Red Gate and saw the two slumped forms they began to shout. It didn't last long before gunfire drowned them out, one of the bodies suddenly opening fire as another stepped from behind the stone wall, gunning down the three White Legs in a surprise assault.

The remaining foes setting up the defence scrambled, realising they were under attack.

The attempt at sneaking a failure, the Courier opted instead for the route Pale Omen had chosen: draw them out and kill them one after the other.

He reloaded the one-of-a-kind revolver and drew the rifle once again, taking aim for the Red Gate's passage.

Instead, someone peered over the top of the arch, lying prone and trying to catch the attackers by surprise from above.

The Drifter redirected his aim and blasted a round straight through his chin, leaving him with a few moments of agony before he passed out and his body shut down for good.

"Faenga ayutare!" one of the White Legs yelled.

Pale Omen leaped up from beneath the body, bloody covering him, and rushed towards the passage, both weapons ready.

The messenger running to summon reinforcements took three bullets to the back, the last of which impacted his spine, sending him to the floor with serious injuries, the kind that without immediate treatment would rapidly worsen.

The Drifter, panicking at Pale Omen's sudden rush, followed him, dropping the rifle and pulling the two pistols that so fittingly came to be his from their places: the weapon he had known all his life, and the weapon that had taken his life.

Both served the same purpose now in slaying the White Legs.

The defence of the Red Gate had still been in its early stages. That anyone would push so far beyond their defences and ignore their assaults was unlikely. Indeed that proved to be the truth, but even with only two men the attack was enough to temporarily take hold of the stone formation.

The Courier wasted no time, making his way up the uneven stone steps that ramped to the top of the gate, noting that they themselves passed through a narrow niche in between the rocks. He made sure to factor that in.

At the top of the gate he could see Zion once again. The sun had risen now, dawn breaking over the world and light flowing into the valley of paradise. The sky was cloudy, darkening rapidly, as though the scene below it was gradually twisting its mood, filling it with sorrow to see such death.

Or perhaps anger at the violation of Zion's tranquillity.

Taking special care at the arch, the Courier paused and sighed, examining the metal device on his wrist, the great collection of information he wore.

Everything else suddenly seemed a little less important, now that he was there. Making his way along the top of the Gate he searched, before finding a small path winding up to the very top of the rock formation, overgrown with greenery so that it looked almost like a wall of plant life rather than the hidden ascent it truly was.

Climbing upwards, he pulled himself up to the peak of the Red Gate, another of Zion's high places, nearly matching the Aerie.

There was a pack sitting up against the stone there, with a small collection of things inside. An old rifle with crooked sights, a children's book whose ancient pages had been preserved incredibly well. A tin of beans that had been opened and only half eaten lay beside him.

Who?

A skeleton, leaned back against the stone in a position of rest, empty eye sockets gazing into the sky where the sun would set.

Even as the battle below raged, the Courier knelt down and stared at the form of a man who died over a century earlier, slowly and respectfully looking at the items they had brought with them when they died.

"His name was Randall," the Courier said finally as Pale Omen approached, not understanding his sudden reverence.

The pale one remained quiet, looking at the dead being. All he saw was a dead body.

What the Courier saw was so much more. "Zion must be defended. But the White Legs aren't like the people Sylvie came with. They're not inexperienced, they're not easy prey. Even as we are now it will be a difficult battle. Many are going to die."

The Drifter was speaking to the skeleton as though it could hear him. As though they'd met before.

"When I told the Sorrows to fight I felt strong. I felt like that was the only path. I'll see it through, as well. But seeing them kill… there's no joy in it. In forcing them to lose their innocence."

"Courier," Pale Omen said quietly, trying to cut him away from the strange state he found himself in. "We must go."

"I know, but give me this much. He deserves it," the Vagabond replied.

He took a seat against the rocks beside 'Randall'. Out across Zion he could see the battle. The Dead Horses defending Zion. The White Legs trying to take it. The Sorrows giving up their tranquillity forever.

Far out across the cliffs at the edge of Zion, then like once before, a glint of gold caught the sunlight; something to the west watching.

"I hope I'm doing the right thing. I hope good comes of this. What is worth sacrificing in the name of home?" he wondered.

"Courier," Pale Omen repeated.

"I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. You deserve a burial. A place of honour here, instead of what I'm going to do. But it's in the name of their home and their way of life, however much this affects that."

He rose to his feet once again, taking a deep breath and placing the last block of C4 on the ledge in front of the dead man.

"For Zion," the Courier sighed, making his way back down. As he reached the base of the Red Gate a shout rang out and a White Leg appeared up the path.

Pale Omen snatched a weapon from one of the fallen once again, briefly aiming the machine gun and blasting a swarm of bullets towards the foe before running back through the passage.

The Vagabond snatched up his rifle as they fled, making their way back down to the Virgin River. He pulled the detonator from the pack, the last item within it, and looked back at the Red Gate one last time.

The first of the White Legs giving chase appeared through the passage, and Courier Six pressed the switch, closing the Red Gate with one last "I'm sorry."

The explosion sent chunks of stone soaring through the air. The arch shattered, crumbling down to block the passage as the walls broke, entire pieces slipping from the rock, crushing White Legs beneath them and rendering the way nearly impossible to effectively navigate. As a retreat it was completely ineffective. As a route to strike from it was useless.

The C4 in front of Randall had likely destroyed the century-old skeleton entirely, spreading its remains into the wind. Perhaps that was why the Courier placed the last block in a place that did little to help sheave the stone into a blockade.

Their part in the assault dealt with, the Courier and Pale Omen began making their way back to the Aerie, where Pale Omen had agreed to meet Joshua once each had fought their separate battles.

As they made their way down to the river once more another explosion shook the valley from elsewhere. A cavern to the north collapsed inwards, smoke and dust spewing from its mouth. Another road blocked for good.

The Courier said that nations scar the very land they war across when they meet. What took place in Zion involved not nations, but simple tribes. Consider this, when you consider war. The larger a people grows the more damage they will cause when they clash with others. Zion today is not the Zion it was before the battle. Roads once walked are now forever inaccessible, lost to you or me, or any people that will come in the future.

A pack of the Sorrows watched the Courier and Pale Omen approach as they waded to Dagger's Point, the bodies of White Legs and their fallen comrades around them, lying where they had fallen.

A few of the victors were making their way between the bodies, one searching through the White Legs and slitting their throats, making sure they did not get back up, others looking over their own fallen to see who could be saved, and whose pain could be ended quickly.

Their eyes were darker, focus on the battle and the wear on their bodies evident, as was the way they had discarded the peace they had once embraced.

The Courier refused to look any of them in the eyes, instead simply nodding and continuing on his way.

Pale Omen observed them as he walked, noting the way they were slaying the survivors. He looked at the gun in his hand, then at the gauntlet on his arm. One of the Sorrows had picked up a two-pronged glove not unlike it, and the others had been given guns before the battle to ready themselves.

They made their way up the slope, and already it was clear that the Aerie was theirs. Standing at its peak was Joshua Graham, his ghostly white appearance watching them over the railing, his silver gun not unlike the late Strip lord's pistol catching the sunlight and shining.

Not the traditional sword of justice, but the trail of corpses that marked the Burned Man's path to the Aerie were evidence to its might all the same; not one bullet had strayed from its mark. Every round fired had met flesh, often with fatal consequence.

"Omen," he acknowledged as the two reached Zion's summit, the Courier for the second time.

"Joshua, things seem to be going well," the Courier observed, looking out across the valley.

"In some respects. The White Legs are harrying outer locations. Their drive to destroy the Narrows a second time is overwhelming, but we do not have the time to go and offer them support," Joshua explained. "They've taken the opportunity to strike at camps, which is why our minor territory strikes have gone so well. The Dead Horses encampment is under heavy fire as well."

The Wanderer looked back to the east, where the river flowed into the camp in front of the Angel cavern. The sounds of battle were more numerous, now that they were listening for it. While the Sorrows and Dead Horses were gaining points in the valley itself, the White Legs had launched a simultaneous attack, trading much of their territory for more significant aspects of the Sorrows' and Dead Horses'.

"Pale Omen, go and get ready. There is a vest waiting for you. The coat you requested too, though finding it was not the easiest," Joshua instructed.

Nodding, Pale Omen slipped behind the Aerie, leaving the Courier. "Join me a moment," the Burned Man requested. "We are nearly ready."

"What is Pale Omen doing?" the Courier wondered as he climbed the stairs to the Aerie's observation platform.

"Getting dressed into something more substantial. Today is a day where he leaves something behind too," Joshua explained.

"Today seems to be a day that a lot of people are giving up things," the Courier replied, looking back towards the ruins of the Red Gate.

"What about you Courier?" Joshua asked, looking across at his ally.

"I don't know. Maybe I gave up my faith in innocence," he said thoughtfully.

"Faith is a heavy price to pay, no matter what is earned. But that you have done so must mean that your reasons are even stronger," the Burned Man offered.

"True. Maybe in giving up innocence I've found a different kind of faith. One that something good can still be built in the ashes of the world. Part of me never really believed that could happen, but whatever it was in my past that decided that, I think forgetting it has helped me see things a little clearer. When I do remember, I won't just go back to seeing things that way," the Courier said, looking up into the sunlight.

"Well done, Courier. Making the best of your situation," the Burned Man said, impressed. "Many could learn from your example. Myself included, perhaps."

"You mean about before? With the Legion?" the Courier responded bluntly.

Joshua paused, then chuckled. "Love the sinner, hate the sin. My leaving Caesar's Legion was an experience that taught me many things, but some lessons are difficult to keep hold of when situations… reminiscent of the past return."

"You're thinking of the Battle of Hoover Dam?"

"It is present in the back of my mind, yes. That I survived that battle was a curious fate, given how I acted. Caesar and I were both fortunate that the NCR's supply lines north of the Mojave outpost were destroyed before the battle," Joshua said.

The Courier looked at him, brow creasing. "What happened?"

"Something bad happened near Death Valley, at a place called the Divide. NCR couldn't cut across anymore and it slowed down their reinforcements. Terrible storms ripped entire companies apart before they even got to Nevada soil. The aftermath of Hoover Dam could have been even worse for Caesar. But I don't know why I'm talking about this. It doesn't matter anymore."

The Courier was not so sure. "What is the Divide? What happened there?" he demanded.

Joshua looked at him, surprised at the force with which he spoke. "I don't know for certain, and I don't think NCR knows either," he replied. "Whatever happened at the Divide was too much for them to handle. Our frumentarii told us what they saw."

"And?"

"Only fools and madmen would march into a place like that. All roads wind down to the same spot. The grave."

The Courier rubbed his forehead and looked back towards where Pale Omen had gone. He should have returned by now.

"They said all that's left there is a gaping wound cut in the Earth, cursed and damned. No place for God-fearing folk," Joshua finished, noticing his unease. "Still, perhaps I can remember something of more substance, if you'll give me a moment."

"What's taking Pale Omen so long?" the Courier wondered, turning back towards the stairs.

"Leave him be, he will be here when he's ready," Joshua said, his tone quickly changing.

The Drifter shook his head and kept walking. "The battle continues, Joshua. We can't wait," he replied, rubbing his forehead again. "I've already stalled us with my curiosity."

Joshua sighed and followed him down the stairs.

When they rounded the Aerie Pale Omen was nowhere to be seen. Only the uneven stone of the building's foundation and the dirt beneath it stood where the former White Leg had originally been.

"What the he-" the Courier began, but was cut off as a piece of the stone wall slid inwards, what looked like a thick foundation revealed to only be stone over a wooden door in that particular spot.

Pale Omen was on the other side, confusion in his face as he realised the Courier was standing in front of him.

"What's this?"

Joshua sighed. "I preferred keeping this a secret. When I examined the Aerie the first time I found this hidden room beneath the building itself, disguised amongst the building's foundations. It became an effective hiding place for items that I could not leave in the tribal camps, nor to the White Legs hands. It was where I brought Pale Omen after he was captured, and I have been storing explosives here as well, in preparation for assaults like the kind you and he undertook not an hour ago," he explained.

The Courier stepped past Pale Omen, who gave Joshua a questioning look and then followed behind him.

A pile of explosives, as Joshua had said, were sitting in one corner of the dim room beyond. A collection of guns and ammunition sat opposite it, with vests like Joshua's. This was where he had retrieved the vest the Courier now wore as well, another item from the Time Before made for battle. In addition there was a box of wires sitting beside the vests. Upon closer inspection he could see that they were detonators, wired for the explosives.

What use they were when the remote detonators worked far better though, the Courier did not guess at.

Turning back to Pale Omen he could see the vest he was wearing, alongside a pair of dark brown leggings patched together from beast hide, heavy hunting boots underneath.

Worn over his other collection of new clothing however was a coat like the Courier's. A pale brown one with a wide collar, closed at the waist.

Clearly inspired by the grey coat the Wanderer wore.

He looked back at Joshua, and saw again the flicker of uncertainty in his strong blue eyes, before the walkie talkie crackled into life. Joshua grabbed it from its clip on his belt.

"Joshua, the Spine is ours," Follows-Chalk reported. "But the reports say that the camp is under heavy fire. What should we do? Should we go back and help?"

"We are pushing our advantage. If we can slay Salt-Upon-Wounds the rest of the White Legs will fall apart soon after," Joshua replied, checking his pistol as he spoke.

"You are sure? We may lose the camp," Follows-Chalk questioned.

"We cannot afford to pause now," Joshua said coldly. "We strike now with a vengeance that will shatter the White Legs forever, and we stop this conflict. Going back to the camp now will only stretch this war out even longer."

"But there are people at the camp," Follows-Chalk pointed out. "Those who aren't warriors, and most of our fighting are out in the valley. They won't be able to hold them back!"

Joshua growled deep in his throat. "I don't like making this choice, Follows-Chalk. More could die if we don't take every opportunity to strike these fatal blows, though," he said strongly.

There was a long pause. Pale Omen and the Courier exchanged looks, both uncertain. No longer dressed in the clothing of a tribal, Pale Omen looked like a whole new person. The effect was not just aesthetic, they both knew. His time beside Joshua and the Courier had changed him, as his speech the night prior stated.

"They're my people, Joshua," Follows-Chalk said darkly.

"We will avenge them," Joshua replied fiercely, gripping his gun tightly in his other hand. "We will bring down the fiery wrath of God himself upon these heathens."

"Joshua," the Wanderer began. "It's not something he can just do. They're his people and his friends. It's not easy to just toss that, even knowing what we have to gain."

"We have to kill Salt-Upon-Wounds. Today. Not tomorrow, not soon. Today. Here. Now!" Joshua yelled at the communicator. "Wait for your opportunity, then strike! We'll lead the assault from the front!"

"Joshua," Pale Omen and the Courier both repeated, softer this time.

"No!" the Burned Man roared. "This has gone on long enough! Omen, with me!"

He threw the walkie talkie to the Courier and struck down the slope with Pale Omen trailing behind him, the long coat fluttering at his heels.

A crowd of the Sorrows had gathered at Dagger's Point, and they fell in with the Burned Man as he began to run towards the next battle, their final push. Dead Horses and more of the Sorrows arrived from elsewhere to follow him into battle.

"Chalk?" the Courier asked.

"Follows-Chalk is no longer here. I am Stormchaser, leading in his absence," came the reply.

"Dammit, there's no time. Joshua's leading the attack, either we fight alongside him or we risk losing everything. Stormchaser, follow the plan. We'll attack Three Marys from the front, and when they're busy fighting us off take the opportunity and flank them through the slot canyons," the Courier commanded, setting off down the slope at a run to catch up with the growing war party.

A White Leg sniper appeared on the cliffs above them as they moved, but a single flash from Joshua's handgun later he was falling back, already dead.

A party of the tribals appeared at the top of the river, guns ready to fire. The war party ducked for cover, firing up at them. Joshua never so much as slowed down, emptying the entire clip upstream and never missing. Five White Legs were dead by the time he'd reloaded, his hands making the switch between empty and full clips in less than a second.

Those that remained were eliminated by Pale Omen and the other tribals, a storm of gunfire surging through them. Two Sorrows lay where they fell, a fellow tribal ending their misery quickly with a bullet each as they lay in the water.

A band of Dead Horses ran across the cliffs above them, following their trail through the river from above and offering their support.

The Burned Man surged ahead of them, his apprentice Pale Omen on his heels.

Far behind them a Courier ran, panicking about the situation. Joshua's conviction to defend Zion had always been strong, but this was not the Joshua Graham of New Canaan who was defending the Sorrows from the White Legs.

What was leading the tribes now was the Burned Man. His eyes might as well have been crosshairs, his gun the scythe of the spirit of Death.

It's said that vengeance is the result of justice tainted by revenge. It is still an act of balance, but it is poisoned by the darkness of revenge. It can still be a noble action, but seldom is it one entirely motivated by fair intentions.

Amongst the slaves of the Legion, the Burned Man was seen as a spirit of vengeance. A phantom that might one day return and slaughter the Legion whole. A malevolent beast that tore the throats from those foolish enough to seek it, who had become something inhuman after being flung into the Grand Canyon.

The legends of Joshua Graham, the warlord without peer, were all true.

The entrance to the waters of the Three Marys was a short ways up the river. As he trailed the war party he recognised the ambush site of the Happy Trails caravan, and could see the last of Stormchaser's party slipping through the narrow paths between the stone that wound back into the White Legs' camp.

Along the other cliffs another figure dashed, seen only by the Courier as it followed Joshua and his assembled tribals.

As they disappeared past the walls of stone that served as the gates of Three Marys the gunfire began in earnest; a wave of gunfire echoing off the stone walls, amplifying the sounds of battle into a chaotic storm of war.

A few moments later the Courier rounded the corner, glancing behind him long enough to see the second wave of Sorrows and Dead Horses following him to the slaughter.

Wincing at what was going on; the Drifter committed himself to the battle. Nothing was to be gained by pausing now, though with Joshua's skill it seemed almost unnecessary for him to even still be in Zion.

"Sparspari! Sparspari Burned Man!" echoed a shout from one of the White Legs in amongst the blasts of gunfire.

"No mercy!" the Burned Man roared in response, another gunshot added to the symphony.

"No mercy!" chorused the tribals as they stormed upriver, slipping from wall to wall, but moving so fast that a lengthy stay behind cover was almost unnecessary.

The White Legs' numbers were beginning to grow thicker though, and even in his rage the Burned Man could not keep pushing beyond reason, even if he wanted to.

Dwarfing the sounds of the other gunshots, a thunderous crack tore through Three Marys, a sound the Drifter had come to know as an anti-materiel rifle.

Two Sorrows died instantly as the enormous bullet ripped straight through the chest of one and into the stomach of the woman behind him.

"Cover!" the Burned Man commanded, moving for the nearest outcropping of stone and flattening himself against it.

The glint of the scope upriver flickered across the Courier's vision, but he didn't pause long enough to see if his rifle could cover the distance when he knew the other rifle could, with far greater effect.

Three Marys was, at its entrance, one long river that eventually split into three, all of which flowed back to a central lagoon. The sniper was camped on a ledge above the second of the rivers, with a view all the way down the river.

A sniper trap if ever there was one, but their saving grace was the rifle's inability to hold more than a single shell at a time, meaning that after the initial shot they could push further up. It was just a matter of actually surviving each bullet.

More White Legs poured in through the Three Marys, machine guns spraying bullets downriver into the war party.

The Courier slipped along the wall, keeping flat against it.

The Dead Horses and Sorrows who had been following him appeared behind him, roaring a battle cry.

The two parties exchanged bursts of gunfire, both sides suffering for it, before the sniper fired once again, the loud crack silencing all other guns as it destroyed the head of one of the Dead Horses, ripping him to pieces and leaving the remains to collapse into the water, already discoloured with the blood of so many further upstream.

The Burned Man was moving as soon as the rifle fired, charging upriver and emptying another clip before snatching one of the machine guns off a dead tribal and spraying an incoming group of White Legs with it, sending them tumbling backwards.

Their fire rained into the advancing Sorrows, catching some and injuring the push. One of the Dead Horses screamed as his arm was rendered useless by a bullet to the elbow, cradling the limp limb and allowing his allies to overtake him in the charge.

A few paused to check on him before continuing on, leaving their friend to decide if he could continue the battle through the pain. Not wanting to be left behind, he resolved to fight through the pain.

One of the Sorrows was not as lucky, a two bullets piercing his gut and knocking her backwards into the river. As she gurgled in agony, unable to climb out of the increasingly crimson river that she herself was becoming a part of, one of her allies paused and looked down at her.

The Courier moved closer, and saw her eyes widen in surprised as one of her own tribe raised a pistol and fired directly into her head, a mercy killing she had never asked for, before he discarded his actions and returned to directing his shots at the White Legs.

Another thundercrack and a man only a little further upriver collapsed, his leg blown clean off by the enormous weapon.

He pleaded for help from a woman who, stunned by how close she had come to sharing his fate, had paused to stare at the uneven stump that only seconds ago had been a fully formed leg.

Then she ignored him.

"No prisoners!" the spirit of vengeance roared from upriver.

"No prisoners! No mercy!" cried another band of the tribes as they raced upriver behind the Courier.

"Destroy them all!" the Burned Man continued, his gun slipped back into its holster in favour of the weapons he collected from his kills as he passed. Machine gun fire surged along the canyon walls from and toward him, but his accuracy never failed; every one of the White Legs who took aim at the Burned Man was slain before they could pull the trigger.

Pale Omen raced to keep up, dashing into the cover of a small cave not deep enough to more than a few people, as the moment of freedom exchanged for the lives lost at the hands of the anti-materiel rifle slipped away again.

"Omen!" the Malpais Legate barked. "The rifle! Now!"

Slinging the weapon off his back Pale Omen tossed the Burned Man the sniper rifle he himself was not confident enough to use at a distance.

Joshua knelt in the waters, blood staining his jeans as it flowed around him from the corpses of tens of White Legs. The tribe must have numbered in the high hundreds to have so many to spare.

Two more thunderous cracks exploded around the canyon walls. An enormous round exploded in the water two metres to the Burned Man's right, the sniper's aim knocked off as his finger squeezed the trigger, even while his heart exploded out of his back in torn shreds.

The superheated metal met the cold waters and shattered. Shrapnel sprayed across the Legate's side, some of it burying into his arm, but he ignored it entirely, rising and throwing the rifle back to his apprentice. "Reload it. I'll use it again," he commanded.

Pale Omen, stunned by the force with which the command was issued, did as he was told, staying back and attempting to locate another of the enormous rounds in his coat.

Finding nothing, he tossed it aside and followed the Burned Man back into the battle.

Even with wounds in his arms the Malpais Legate held the storm drum of the White Legs in hand, the burning at the hands of Caesar deadening his nerves and allowing him to ignore pain even as his body suffered from the damage.

"They're readying to fire again!" he yelled. "The rifle, now!"

"No bullets!" Pale Omen yelled back, almost frightened by his teacher.

The Burned Man looked back and glared at him like it was his fault. "Damn it," he spat in fury.

"Duck!" the Courier commanded behind them, attempting to rival the tone of the Burned Man in front of him, hoping to draw some of Joshua back into the vengeful warlord by appearing as an equal.

The command succeeded only as far as offering instruction. The Burned Man and Pale Omen both ducked as the Drifter's rifle cracked, a far less impressive thunder drowned out by the sounds around it, but the bullet caught the White Leg in the kidney as he picked up the feared rifle, knocking him back off the arch in surprise and pain, the rifle following him into the water where the current could quickly make it useless.

A wave of the tribals surged through the east river towards them, only to have a rain of violence crash into their backs as the Dead Horses poured through the narrow slots in the stone.

Caught between the two forces, the White Legs pushed back at those behind him, hoping that the crossroads of the river would draw the attention of the Burned Man and his Legion of tribals.

The assault had been an effective plan, but the surprisingly quick reflexes of the White Legs made it quickly apparent that the narrow passages were a deathtrap to those pouring out of it. Gunfire slaughtered the tribals as they charged in their tens, ripping the party to pieces even as the White Legs' ranks were steadily reduced to one.

"Hold!" the Burned Man yelled as the last White Leg took aim at one of the few remaining Dead Horses amongst the ambush. Stormchaser had fallen, and silently the Courier was glad that Follows-Chalk had refused to take part in the assault. Whatever chances of survival he had where he was going; they had to be better than what had just taken place in a matter of moments.

The White Leg rounded on vengeance itself, levelling a storm drum. The Burned Man blasted the weapon out of his hand, removing a finger in the process. "Where is Salt-Upon-Wounds?" he demanded without a trace of mercy.

The pale creature before him snarled. The Legate responded by planting a bullet in his foot. "I know you understand me. Salt-Upon-Wounds! Where!"

The next bullet exploded in his knee, and he collapsed to the ground, a pathetic splash and whimper.

The assault seemed to have stopped. Sorrows and Dead Horses ran past the small assembly around the remaining White Leg, but none of the invaders of Zion seemed to be pushing back.

The Burned Man sensed it, and was quickly moving to counter the White Legs' attempt to flee by hunting down the war chief.

The White Leg attempted another snarl of defiance, and the Malpais Legate stood at full height, towering over the crumpled form of his foe, and then with one savage motion slammed his foot down, snapping the bone in the tribal's other leg.

He screamed, his savagery sending him into a frenzy of pain and emotion, blind terror mingled with animalistic rage. Like a beast cornered he was attempting to lash out.

The next attempt continued to send him deeper into that state. The Burned Man placed the barrel of the gun into his palm and ripped a hole in it, placing the white-hot barrier against his chest, right over his heart.

"Last chance," he warned, knowing the language of the White Legs but refusing to give them even the respect it took to translate his demands out of English.

The answer was shrieked so frantically that not even Pale Omen, a native speaker of the language, was able to catch all of it.

The warlord knew, though. "They're fleeing. Pathetic cowards," he spat. "Pale Omen! The Cavern of the Son!"

The Burned Man's apprentice took off at a run, determined to catch his father.

"Did you need to do that to him?" the Courier demanded, looking at the broken form of the White Leg.

The Malpais Legate fired one last round into the tribal's head, and then took off at a run, following Pale Omen. "Scum like him deserve it," he said coldly as the Courier, shocked, started running to keep up.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You spend all your time preaching about what it is to fight for the right reasons, and then… this!" the Courier demanded as they moved.

Two White Legs, hiding in an attempt to ambush them, burst from cover. The Burned Man barely even expended a thought as he put them down.

"I am fighting for the right reasons, Courier. You know this," he replied.

"You're taking it too far!"

"There is no such thing. I firmly believe that Zion belongs to the Sorrows. I am removing the White Legs."

"This isn't the way to do it! They're retreating, we've already won!" the Courier protested.

"We've won when Salt-Upon-Wounds is dead," the Burned Man stated without room for argument. "Are you ready, Pale Omen?"

"Yes," his apprentice said simply.

The river eventually ended with a waterfall, the shore a short ways downstream already littered with corpses from both sides. The Legate's interrogation had lost them some time, but they were quickly catching up.

The Cavern of the Son waited for them only a short run away from the river of the dead, a dirt path curving up to its seat in the stone.

Not wanting to be left behind, the Courier continued following the Burned Man and Pale Omen even as his ears detected the sound of splashing footsteps behind them.

The darkness of the cave beyond was lit by torches and gunfire in equal measure as the remaining Sorrows and Dead Horses of the attack party exchanged fire in bursts, both huddled behind cover; the tribals under the Burned Man had taken positions around the cave sheltering behind the stones, while the White Legs lay over the edge of the path ascending up towards the depths of the cave where it ran horizontal to the opening below.

The appearance of the pale spectre of Death calmed the battle for a moment. It was enough time for the pistol he carried in place of a bow to fell three White Legs and push the remainder back.

Now his raging fury had cooled to a seething, concentrated rage. It was hard to believe anything on Earth could be more dangerous than the Burned Man was now, all his hatred channelled into a single purpose, death to all who stood in the face of that.

Pale Omen, a dog of war, running at his heels, gun blazing as he moved, bullets chasing his retreating kin.

Behind them came a Courier, his purpose in the battle dissolving into uncertainty and horror at the monster he had helped unleash.

Trailing them all came the last addition.

The cavern ran through a long maw, a dark throat that led far into the darkness, a steadily rising path leading towards one of the few roads out of Zion, as well as into. The road the White Legs had followed in order to get into paradise, and now were frantically making their way back through in retreat.

A fissure in the stone allowed a single column of sunlight to enter from far above as the party made their way into the cavern's wide heart.

"Ti desfidre pare dircht fuhvir!" Pale Omen yelled as his father turned, his face hidden behind the mask he wore, appearing as a skull within the mouth of the animal's skeletal visage he adorned as part of his war armour.

"Tu non ereis uno dvon nosuns," Salt-Upon-Wounds said coldly, discarding his son like he would a piece of trash.

Pale Omen grinned confidently. "Tu nai tebuardo," he yelled, before letting out a laugh.

The collection of White Legs making their way further into the cave murmured amongst themselves.

Salt-Upon-Wounds turned around. He was tall, covered in scars. The sort of creature that had been fighting since birth. His pale skin was adorned with tattoos made to look like wounds with bleed seeping from them, making it difficult to distinguish whether or not glancing blows had struck. What little clothing he did wear was white stained with red, simple coverings of cloth now, though he was sometimes seen wearing the skeletons of impressive beasts he himself hunted and killed in a kind of ritual that supposedly derived power from their slain spirits.

On his wrist was a powerful gauntlet, two spines dripping with venom that blasted forward when they struck an object in much the same way as the pneumatic gauntlets carried by some in the Mojave.

Considerably more dangerous than the mantis gauntlet Pale Omen carried.

Nonetheless, Salt-Upon-Wounds took the challenge issued by his son, striding towards him. The column of sunlight streamed down to shine on a pool of water that accumulated as the rain from the sky above came to rest in the cavern.

Choosing the small pool as their arena for battle, Salt-Upon-Wounds took a battle stance without so much as another word.

Pale Omen, eager for the day when he would challenge his father for years, but never imagining it would mean something so different now, stepped forward to meet him.

Aiming to end the fight as quickly as it began, Salt-Upon-Wounds lunged immediately, but his son stepped aside.

Striking at the exposed chest of the thinly dressed White Leg leader, Pale Omen attempting to pierce his abdomen.

Salt-Upon-Wounds grabbed the jab and threw his son across the pool, his uncoordinated form collapsing in a heap before he righted himself and drew back up to full height.

The Courier watched the battle, knowing he should not interfere. While the rest of the battle was important, this was Pale Omen's moment, a personal trial that he not only wished to but needed to overcome alone.

The Burned Man, however, was not so interested in the ritual of succession. He reached into his pocket and drew out a small rectangular block, an antenna extending from its peak. Underneath a small transparent panel was a red switch.

Salt-Upon-Wounds kicked at Pale Omen's leg, knocking him to a knee, before he thrust the metallic gauntlet into an uppercut.

His son threw himself onto his back to avoid the attack and then pushed his arms into the ground beneath him, springing forward with both legs outstretched, knocking his Salt-Upon-Wounds backwards.

He collapsed to his knees and rolled sideways as the mantis gauntlet slammed into the stone, harmlessly scratching it before its wielder spun and readied for the next exchange.

Pale Omen's father spat insults at him in the White Legs' tongue, baiting him to attack, taunting him about aspects of his life before being forcibly removed from their culture.

The White Leg leader readied for Pale Omen's next strike, but his son instead remained patient.

"I am not like you," he said in perfect English, an effort to distinguish himself from the son of Salt-Upon-Wounds he had once been and further establish both to his father and to himself, that he was a new man.

"Then die!" the White Leg leader yelled, pressing the attack once more.

The Burned Man flicked the transparent panel over the switch back and stepped back towards the entrance to the cave.

Courier Six noticed the movement, turning to see why the warlord was seemingly retreating. His eyes fell to the detonator.

"Joshua, what is that?" he asked quietly.

"Stand back, Courier. Or you will be caught in the blast," the Burned Man stated in a monotone.

The box of wires.

The Vagabond's eyes looked back at Pale Omen as his haymaker connected with Salt-Upon-Wounds' shoulder, prompting a grunt from the tribal.

Under the duster inspired by that which the Courier wore was a vest, similar but not the same to the kind he and the Burned Man were wearing. A vest that, now that he knew what to look for, had black wires stitched closely to the top of the vest, disappearing inside it.

"You sick, twisted son of a bitch," the Courier said, awe-struck by what Joshua Graham had planned from the very beginning.

"He will lose everything. His own flesh and blood shall be his undoing," the Burned Man continued, no trace of emotion in his tone.

"Pale Omen might win," the Courier protested. "You never needed to do this."

"I never needed to," the Burned Man replied. "I wanted to."

The words struck the Courier with enough force to make his knees weak. "All that time spent teaching him how to be something better than them? Showing him what he could be, teaching him how to protect others? Was that all meaningless!"

"An unintended side effect. From the beginning Pale Omen had only this one purpose: the death of his father by any and all possible means. If he loses here then I will ensure Salt-Upon-Wounds dies regardless. For him to become something more than a weapon was something I hadn't expected. It seems your example was strong enough to teach him things outside of war," the Burned Man answered. The cold, dead voice of a man who had died years ago, after the Battle of Hoover Dam, was quiet and almost thoughtful in the destructive intent he was explaining.

The Courier shook his head violently, refusing to believe that underneath everything else this was the Joshua Graham who had been defending Zion. "And even seeing what he is now you're going to throw it all away? Even if he loses all it takes is a bullet to end him. Something like this is just sick!"

Joshua shook his head. "Nothing will make a statement like this does. Even if he won, Pale Omen would become leader of the White Legs as a result of their culture. When the son is strong enough to slay his father he inherits the mantle of leader. Pale Omen could not change the White Legs even if he was their undisputed master. They are bloodthirsty savages. Slaughtering him before them all with the press of a button would traumatise them. Shatter their will. It would crush their spirit."

"At what cost to yours?" the Courier demanded.

Pale Omen kicked his father in the chest, knocking him back and following the attack. The gauntlet turned it aside, the spines bursting forward and falling short of the walking bomb's face, before he brought his leg up, kicking Salt-Upon-Wounds in the chin, sending his head arcing back to crack into the stone with a dull and painful thud.

Disorientated, the leader of the White Legs stood up. He wobbled a moment, and Pale Omen struck once again.

Sorrows and Dead Horses were making their way through the cave, a crowd of them arriving full of bloodlust to see the battle before them. They paused, staring at the exchange between father and son.

"I made my peace with this course of action. My intentions are good, the protection of these people. Will you argue that?" the Burned Man wondered without emotion.

"It's not what it accomplishes that's wrong here, Joshua. Don't you get it? Caesar's Legion has good intentions too, I'm sure. A society from the ashes. But look at what they do to accomplish it. Look at what you're doing to accomplish it," the Courier pressed.

The Burned Man hesitated. Something in him realised the line he was treading. Vengeance smothered the voice. "I am fulfilling a righteous goal."

"You're becoming Caesar's right hand again."

The crystal blue eyes of Joshua Graham had never been so terrifying as his fist slammed into the Courier's face at the same moment Pale Omen's last strike sent his father tumbling to the ground, defeated.

Looking up, the Burned Man saw the victory, his finger on the trigger as Pale Omen placed the mantis gauntlet at his father's throat, signalling the end of Salt-Upon-Wounds.

Dressed in a coat and, unbeknown to him, a bomb vest, Pale Omen looked over at the two men who had taught him so much more about the world than he ever realised he could know. One lay on the ground, blood flowing from his broken nose. The other stared at him with piercing blue eyes.

"Kill him," the Burned Man commanded.

"Don't do this," the Courier pleaded. "He doesn't deserve it."

The Malpais Legate, the spirit of vengeance, the Burned Man who walked with Death, looked down at the Courier on the ground, a meaningless mail man whose actions affected nothing now.

Nothing except the most powerful man in the room.

Pale Omen knelt before his father, the mantis gauntlet still poised at his throat. He pulled the venomous gauntlet off his wrist and tossed it aside. Then he reached up and pulled the animal skull and mask away from his father's face, revealing the battered man beneath it.

A scar had cut a chunk of his nose off, a reminder of the day Salt-Upon-Wounds surpassed his own father. His eyes were dull green, watching his son expectantly.

The rite of succession was nearly complete. The leader had been defeated by his son, now all that was left was the last act of the leader: to die and pass the mantle on.

"Tu seid furte, Joshua. Linto," Salt-Upon-Wounds said, using his son's real name, intending it to be his last words.

"La White Legs non son pas," Pale Omen, known to the White Legs as Joshua, after the man who had come to be his mentor, said. His first and only order as leader of the White Legs.

They were to be no more.

"Omen, kill him," the Burned Man commanded again, stronger this time.

"No," Joshua replied. "I do not need to."

The Courier stared at him through blurred vision, and both Joshuas looked down at him. Slowly, he pulled himself up, his face streaked with blood, his mouth tasting of metal.

"Kill him!" the Burned Man demanded.

"No."

"This is a holy place. A temple to God's glory. The only use for an animal like him in our temple is sacrifice!" the Burned Man pushed.

"I will not kill him," Joshua said, standing between the Burned Man and Salt-Upon-Wounds. "The White Legs are no more."

Indeed, those who had been waiting and watching as their leader fought had now fled, some of the Dead Horses and Sorrows giving chase.

"He gave no mercy to my family, and I will give none to his," the Burned Man spat, discarding the detonator and stepping forward.

His apprentice stood tall, barring his path.

"Joshua, we've won," the Courier said again. "You can let go."

"He has a debt to pay for what he's done and I've come to collect," the Burned Man said, the cold fury in him beginning to rise once again.

"It is over, and he is broken," Joshua replied.

The Burned Man's fist rose, preparing to strike Joshua, knock him to the ground and remove the last obstacle on his road to vengeance.

"If I forget you, Zion, may my hand forget its skill."

Daniel stood in the mouth of the cave, the figure that had followed them the whole time, pausing as he did to tend to the wounded in the battle, but always keeping a close watch on the Burned Man and his crusade.

Blue eyes turned, rising along the arc of the Burned Man's arm before he looked back into the green eyes of the young tribal who shared his name.

"I want to take from them what they took from me. From my family. I want them to suffer. In this life. I want all of them to die in fear and pain!" the Burned Man exclaimed, but now the quiet fury was met with immeasurable grief.

"He will suffer for his sins in the next life, Joshua. The path you walk is too dark to call yourself a man of God. Please," Daniel pushed, stepping towards his friend. "I have stood by while all else happened. I understand why you did it, even if I don't condone it. But this is too much. Far too much."

The Burned Man's eyes swam with uncertainty. Joshua's… mine had never been more clear.

"I want to have my revenge. Against him. Against Caesar," my teacher protested, but now the grief was soothing the fury, and in the wake of both came a new light to his eyes. Revelation. "I want to call it my own, to make my anger God's anger. To… justify the things I've done."

"Let go," Daniel and I said in unison.

Courier Six looked at us from afar, knowing now that his actions had tipped the situation, and now it was in hands other than his.

Salt-Upon-Wounds, my father, cowered behind me; waiting for the moment someone would turn and finish him off. Unable to comprehend that there was a way out of this situation in which he lived.

Unable to comprehend mercy, the poor man.

Water trickled down through the fissure above us, cooling water beginning to flow over us as a heavy rain descended over the valley.

The Burned Man heaved an enormous sigh. "Sometimes I tell myself that these wild fires never stop burning. But I'm the one who starts them. Not God. Not them," he admitted, finally, to himself. "I can always see it in my mind. The warmth and the heat. It will always be a part of me. But not today."

"We are more than what the dark times in our lives have made us," Daniel agreed, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. "To let go and to forgive… that is the path to the divine, old friend."

Joshua Graham looked down at Salt-Upon-Wounds over my shoulder. "Go. Get out of here. Go back. Back to the Great Salt Lake," he conceded.

I turned and looked back at my father one last time, nodding. Stumbling and confused, Salt-Upon-Wounds, former leader of the White Legs, turned and walked from the cave, watched by the Sorrows and Dead Horses as he went. Their eyes on him as he strode away from Zion forever was a scene that played out in his sleep until the day he died, the memory buried deep in his mind for all eternity.

We watched him go too, our eyes on his back to add to it all. I bid farewell to my father that day, in a way none of us would have ever believed.

"That's it. It's finished," Joshua sighed after a long time, turning to look at Daniel and the Courier. "Thank you both for… staying with me, even when you did not approve. I couldn't have done this on my own."

"Nobody should walk a dark road by themselves. Sometimes the simple act of walking beside them is all it takes to lead them to a brighter place," Daniel offered reverently.

"It might have been a dark road, but we did it. Zion is safe, for better or worse," the Courier said. "I hope the price we paid was worth it."

"As do I, Courier," Joshua agreed. "Come. Let us go and find Follows-Chalk. The battle is won, but there is still much left to do."

I will never forget that day for as long as I live. The day Zion was won in the name of the Sorrows. In the name of 'Randall', a man the Courier revered in silence. The day Joshua Graham, the Burned Man, nearly gave in to the fire inside him, and the day Courier Six and Daniel of New Canaan helped to calm those fires, and in the process saved my life.

We collapsed the cave using the explosives originally intended for me, preventing any White Legs from returning, and closing another of the roads into paradise, and then we returned.

The Narrows had held, Waking Cloud proving that the Sorrows had the strength to stand on their own legs when the world demanded it of them. The Courier told them that the Father was both proud and sad, but that they too should take pride in their actions, but never forget who they once were.

Finally, we returned to the Dead Horses camp. They were gone, all fled by the time our feet tread those grounds once more. We were greeted by a family; an old man and his daughter, and her two children. They and a collection of others like them had managed to survive the massacre of the camp, even when so many around them had perished, and it was all thanks to the efforts of one young man.

We found his body at the entrance to the Angel cave, where he had fallen in defence of his family and many others like them, holding off scores of White Legs even as their bullets claimed him moment by moment.

He had finally found it in himself to walk without Joshua's shadow upon him.

The most noble of deaths, the Courier called it, to die protecting those one loves most.

Rest in peace, young Follows-Chalk.


	33. Return with Songs of Joy

Not much to this one if you've already gone through it in the game, just a round off to Zion and the framing device through which we viewed it. Not next weekend, but the one following, we'll start the next story arc, back in the Mojave at last. Hopefully you guys don't mind sitting tight until then.

JD: the Sorrows' sudden bloodthirst is showing how quickly necessity paired with an influence like Joshua Graham can change someone's attitude. The Sorrows believed, between what Joshua was telling them and what the Courier was telling them, that this righteous bloodlust was what the Father in the Caves wanted. It really was, to them, a crusade, and it wasn't until the very end that they, alongside Joshua, were made to see the darkness they were embracing with this path. Which brings us to your point on Joshua sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds. At that point in time Salt-Upon-Wounds was largely irrelevant. He no longer held power, his people were routed and in retreat. His death at that point would be more symbolic. Sparing him was more about Joshua saving himself. The leader of the White Legs was something of a gateway to that; through showing mercy he was saving himself. Salt-Upon-Wounds didn't deserve to live, I agree, but that's the point.

Spartan: thanks, it was kind of my saving moment for Daniel, since as I've mentioned I have a bit of trouble portraying him when I'm giving so much time to Pale Omen and Joshua in order to develop them. He fell by the wayside a bit, but hopefully his return in Joshua's (both of them, haha) hour of need helped his character shine a little better.

One last look at Zion...

* * *

><p><em><strong>Return with Songs of Joy<strong>_

_20th December, 2281_

"I wish you would consider staying a few days longer, Courier. Christmas is a time of celebration, one when a man should be with his friends and family," Joshua said, once again voicing his preference for having the Drifter stay in Zion until the annual event was past.

"I appreciate it, Joshua. But it's time for me to get these legs of mine going again. I've got things in the Mojave to do, and whether or not it's been long enough for the fire to calm down, it's time for me to go and see the damage. There are people who are hopefully still waiting for me," Courier Six replied, drawing his coat around him.

Zion was a new place without the threat of the White Legs bearing down upon it. Carelessly wandering still held the dangers of the local wildlife, but the organised threat the enormous tribe had posed had lifted, and those who remained, though in mourning for their fallen, breathed a sigh of relief thanks to it.

The Sorrows and Dead Horses had carried out funeral rites and burials, celebrations in the name of those fallen and praised their memories as strongly as they could. The bodies had been cleared, and even the White Legs who had died had been given a place of burial at Three Marys. Far from the other tribes, but still a sign of some kind of respect. All were equal in death, in the end.

Among them lay Follows-Chalk.

It had been a harsh discovery to make, but war did not discriminate between close friends or hated enemies. It claimed any it desired.

His memory would not be left to fall amongst the other who died in that battle for Courier Six, though. Tied to his sleeve were three feathers taken from the young man's cap, worn as a reminder of his friend. It was cold comfort, but Courier Six had resolved to take Follows-Chalk to see the world, even if only in spirit.

He had been taken to a ledge that ran along the canyon walls above a river fork. Nestled between the stone was a narrow trail that vanished into a claustrophobic descent out of Zion, a one way road that left paradise for the scorched land of Utah.

Walking with him on his last stroll through the beautiful land were the allies he'd made in his defence of the valley. Daniel and Joshua Graham had come, both smiling warmly. In the days after the Burned Man had finally relented the two had spent much time talking amongst themselves, and it seemed that the result was a Joshua Graham more at peace with his existence. His burns still clearly gave him pain, but he endured it with a different kind of resolve now. A tranquil acceptance instead of the blaze of defiance.

The fire had not died, but he had come to understand it better now.

Waking Cloud had come, herself livelier now that time had passed and her husband's death was less of a raw wound. She had insisted Courier Six leave with a supply of prepared food, then insisted she teach him how to make it again for the future. Without the constant presence of invaders she was free to act more like the mother she was.

Joshua, also going by his newer name of Pale Omen had come, considering joining the Wanderer now that the events in Zion had come to and end, but eventually he had settled on staying with his namesake for longer to learn as much as he could, and also to help the tribes his people had brought such pain to.

The gathering stood at the entrance to the passage, four pairs of eyes on the man in his father's duster, stitched with patterns of the Dead Horses and wearing the feathers of a friend on his arm.

Courier Six looked back at them and smiled warmly. "It's been quite the ride," he concluded simply.

"If you ever find yourself back in Utah come and tell us some stories. I'm sure you'll have many to share," Joshua said.

"Safe travels, Courier," Daniel added.

"I don't know about safe, but I'm sure they'll be worth talking about," Six responded, pulling the little platinum disc from his pocket and flicking it into the air.

As it fell back to earth he caught it and slapped it onto the back of his other hand.

"Be careful. And protect those you love," Waking Cloud instructed.

"Tails," Courier Six chuckled, placing the platinum chip back in his pocket and patting it.

Pale Omen simply nodded, a gesture that the messenger reciprocated before looking past his gathered friends out into Zion one last time.

The sun was shining. If he could have seen it now, Courier Six hoped Randall would be happy with how things had happened.

"Farewell, paradise," he said, turning and making his way from what may have been the greenest place in America.

His feet carried him from soil back to dirt, out into the wilderness of Utah and south towards the dark clouds of the Mojave Wasteland. Where Rachel waited for his return. Where the Bear waited to question him. Where the Bull waited to whisper to him. Where kings prepared to make him their knight.

Where his past lay in wait, though whether to ambush him or aid him he could not yet know.

_And so it was that the conflict between the New Canaanites and the White Legs was finally resolved. The Courier's involvement had tipped the scale, shifting the fragile balance of power._

_The defeat of the White Legs in Zion marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Happy Trails Caravan Company. Every two months, the caravan met with the New Canaanites in Zion Valley to trade. Happy Trails soon returned to prosperity. The vigilance of the Sorrows and Dead Horses in defending southwestern Utah, initially startling to Happy Trails caravans, soon proved a blessing. The tribes united against the 80s, driving them back from Highway 50, and thus opening yet another trading route for Happy Trails caravans._

_Demoralized by the Dead Horse and Sorrows attack the Courier and Joshua Graham led against them, the White Legs retreated to Great Salt Lake. Their days were numbered. Word soon reached the 80s tribe that the White Legs' spirit was broken, their war chief a dim shadow of his former self. By year's end, the 80s would overrun the White Legs' camps, scattering the tribe to the winds and claiming the Great Salt Lake for its own._

_Having helped eradicate the White Legs from Zion, the Dead Horses returned to Dead Horse Point in triumph. They remained neutral toward the Sorrows, but as years went on, there were periods of competitive friction, even violence, between the tribes. The New Canaanites - Daniel especially - intervened regularly as mediators, but found it difficult to reconcile the tribes' conflicts._

_The Sorrows fought beside Joshua Graham and the Dead Horses, eradicating the threat the White Legs posed to Zion. Seeing Daniel and Pale Omen convince Joshua Graham to spare Salt-Upon-Wounds, the Sorrows learned that retribution could be tempered by mercy. Though he despaired at the Sorrows' loss of innocence, Daniel took some small consolation in the Courier's lesson, and prayed it would take root._

_Follows-Chalk took the Courier's words to heart and decided that he would behold the sights and sounds of distant lands with his own eyes and ears. However, the conflict that consumed Zion claimed his life before he could at last realise his dream. His family mourned greatly, as did their tribe. But grief was not the only emotion Follows-Chalk inspired; his final stand and dedication to his people was a source of pride for generations to come._

_Waking Cloud was distraught when she learned of her husband's death, but took comfort from her tribe, and the compassion of the New Canaanites. She forgave Daniel for having concealed her husband's fate from her, and learned to accept his fate. When her grief faded, she took a husband from the Dead Horse tribe. At her bidding, he stayed close to home._

_For years after the defeat of the White Legs, Daniel did his best to minister to the Sorrows' spiritual needs. Try as he might, he could not hold back the tribe's increasing militancy and reverence of Joshua Graham. Demoralized, he returned to his family at Dead Horse Point. Despite his efforts and his success in saving Joshua, his failures to the Sorrows haunted him for the rest of his days._

_The threat of the White Legs ended, Joshua Graham helped the Sorrows and Dead Horses tend to their fallen comrades and secure Zion. Pale Omen's words had stayed Joshua's wrath in his darkest hour, and in sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds, he was changed. While he continued to advocate militant opposition to the enemies of New Canaan, he sometimes showed quarter to those who crossed his family. Eventually this new spirit would diminish the myth of the Burned Man in distant lands - a small price for the peace it brought to Joshua Graham._

_Pale Omen remained with his mentor for years after his initial capture, no longer a prisoner or pawn, but a free man who chose to stay with those who had changed his life for the better. Inspired by the Courier's example, and with Joshua's blessing, he eventually left the New Canaanites to travel on his own, undertaking his own pilgrimage to see the lands beyond his home and understand the world. His first road took him south, into the Mojave desert, though in the years since watching the Courier return there, New Vegas and its surrounding region had been drastically altered._

_18th June, 2297_

Pale Omen leaned back, his story finally at an end.

The Dead Horses around him were silent as the young amongst them absorbed the story, while those who had been old enough to see the conflict reflected upon it, many having seen a new side to it that they had not before.

"I hope you will consider this tale when you think about how to approach this situation with the Sorrows. I know you have no always been at peace, but when you first met the two of you stood as a single entity against a much darker threat. I believe that such bonds cannot be discarded, and I urge you to consider a solution that does not end in bloodshed," Pale Omen urged, looking out over the crowd.

Nobody said anything.

"Thank you, Joshua," one of the tribe's elder members said finally, stepping forward and nodded in appreciation. "Your tale reminds us all of a time when things were clearer to us, and it is perhaps that time in our history that our two tribes must consider when we meet once more."

"You are most welcome," Pale Omen said, nodding reverently.

Soon they would meet with representatives of the Sorrows tribe to discuss an incident involving the deaths of members of both tribes, the circumstances surrounding which were unclear and cause for hot debate.

If handled poorly, the result of the meeting could escalate some of the bitter feelings between the tribes, and eventually spill into actual warfare. It would not be the first time the tribes had fought, but that was no excuse for it to happen again.

Later, as Pale Omen prepared himself to leave, he paused and looked back at the people he had once fought alongside in the name of slaying his own father. How times had changed over the years.

His thoughts turned to the Courier who had appeared and disappeared within Zion so quickly, resolving the conflict during his stay and then disappearing from its valleys once more to carry his legend back to his home.

He wondered where the Courier's feet might have taken him in the years since their last meeting. How much he had done in the time between. Who he had influenced.

Lastly, he wondered what it was that had so deeply influenced his mind about the conflict in Zion. The thing he had found in that cave, yet never shared with another living soul.

_Logs contained on Pip-Boy 3000 designation 'COURIER6'_

_October 28th_

_Five days on foot, still can't sleep._

_Outside it's like nothing happened. Sky looks wrong, that's all._

_Hike back to overturned NatGuard truck near Toquerville? After blisters heal, maybe._

_Looks like USGS team was researching something here in cave. Cleared out when bombs fell, left equipment behind. Probably thought they had families to run back to._

_October 29th_

_Char, must've said this out loud a thousand times walking here. Maybe writing it will feel more like you heard._

_You were right._

_I was north of Spanish Fork. Took the 77 along Provo Bay to steer clear of town. Would've been home in an hour. Engine died, truck just stopped. So did a Chryslus in the other lane. Knew right away._

_First nuke hit SLC inside a minute. I was looking South - Lucky Man! Flash behind me so bright world looked on fire. Old couple from the Chryslus starts screaming they can't see._

_Didn't watch you die, Char. Saved my eyes. Counted 12 more flashes next 7 minutes. Ground shook each time, 18 seconds later._

_When nothing hit for half an hour, took a look. Globe of fire where you and Alex died. Didn't kid myself._

_Didn't know what to do. Grabbed my pack and rifle._

_Saw to the old couple. Sat them up against car, let them hold and comfort each other. Told them I was going to get help, everything be okay. One bullet through both heads. Instant._

_Five day hike back to Zion._

_You told me. Stop running off to the wild. Man belongs with his family._

_You were right. You were right. You were right. You were right. Wasn't there to hold you and my boy. Died without me. Never touch you or him again._

_Should shoot myself. What I deserve._

_Can't. Maybe soon._

_October 31st_

_Black rain falling outside. Geiger jumping. Should let it kill me but bottling water from back of cave all the same._

_November 2nd_

_Sounds dead outside, but can't look. Geiger goes crazy 15 feet from cave mouth._

_Do the math. Radiation goes down before water runs out or I never leave this cave._

_**Year 2078**_

_January 1st_

_Happy New Year._

_Two months in cave. Still lethal outside. Don't get it. In army they said 2-4 weeks cleared fallout._

_Less than a month's water left. Been mopping condensation off cave walls, wringing shirt into bottles. Trading calories for H2O. Food stocks holding. Thanks, USGS._

_If there was even a chance I'd see the two of you again, I'd run outside._

_January 10th_

_Sounded like windstorm out there for 2 days. Radiation down 500. What happened?_

_January 15th_

_Took a peek. Snow. It glows green._

_January 28th_

_Radiation low enough I could risk short exposure outside._

_More important, cave stream now drinkable if I use Rad drugs._

_January 30th_

_There is nothing alive out there._

_Two Skies Cave terminal_

_**Year 2083**_

_May 5th_

_The comeback goes on._

_Add prickly pear to list of survivors with honey mesquite, and banana yucca. Odd nodules / mutations but safe to eat. Harvesting oh so careful, never take more than a fifth. Mouth waters every time I'm about to eat something that isn't from a can._

_May 7th_

_Clouds of those stinging flies near fallen tree I call "The Napper". Little flashes in the cloud. Something dragonfly-sized that zaps them midair then scoops them up. Something new._

_May 19th_

_Bighorn sheep! A family - ram, ewe, and little one._

_Fucking Goddammit._

_May 20th_

_The sheep were different. Brawny. Ewe had curved horns just like the ram._

_Seen some tiny lizards but this is first time seen animals that big._

_Fingers crossed. 5-10 years breeding, fresh meat, hides, horns._

_I know it's time to go back, Char. When winter has passed._

_**Year 2084**_

_June 14th_

_Just got back. Tired. Good scrounging along the way. Ended up dragging back a cart of stuff._

_Write tomorrow. Sleep._

_June 15th_

_Departed April 10th. Walk to SLC took 15 days. Would've been 7-9 back in the old days but had to circle pockets of radiation and foraged along way._

_Don't know what I was thinking. Imagined I'd find my house, dig through rubble, find - something. Your bones I hoped, and Little Nut's. Would've buried them. Here in Zion maybe._

_SLC is mostly craters. Warped steel girders where highrises sat. Mounds of bricks._

_Never found our house. Didn't even find street. What wasn't a crater was scorched clean._

_Want to believe it was fast, a flash, both of you vaporized. Lies to make me feel better. I'll never know. Which part of city got hit first? Northeast and you both died in a blink. Farther away and you burned alive screaming or the blast broken glass and bits of brick and wood splinters shredding you like hamburger. Look at it coward and listen don't turn away face it. If you'd been brave lucky man you would've found a spot and blown your brains out._

_But not you. You took your time walking back, made a shopping trip out of it. Scrounger._

_The truck was still there on the 77 north of Spanish Fork. The Chryslus too, but no sign of the old couple's bones._

_Outside Nephi I caught a trail. Three men, tracks heading toward Fountain Green. Thought about following but didn't. Stupid fantasy of friends, more likely cannibals._

_June 20th_

_Took two days to build door and electrify it._

_No soliciting, assholes. Home sweet fucking home._

_**Year 2095**_

_September 20th_

_I count 28 of them. 11 adult males, 8 females, 9 children aged 2 - 10. Some rifles and pistols in bad repair. Old world clothes, ratty._

_September 22nd_

_Got close enough last night to hear them talk. Spanish, I think. From Mexico?_

_Heard them say "paradeeso" a bunch. Think that means paradise. Here to stay, then._

_Seem harmless. SEEM._

_October 5th_

_The one I call "Maria" is pregnant. Think the father is "Jose" but she spends a lot of time with "Pablo" too._

_October 7th_

_"Pedro" ran out to pee in the stream and would've seen me if he looked to his left. Too close. Need to give them space._

_November 10th_

_"Jose" broke his leg chasing a bighorn. Too far from camp for them to hear. Told myself to leave it be but couldn't. 300 yards from their camp did my best Jose screaming imitation until a bunch of them came looking, then strung them along to the crest where they could hear the real Jose._

_Probably useless. Compound fracture, broke the skin._

_November 11th_

_"Infec-shee-own." So many goddamn words nearly the same, think I'd be fluent. But anyway Jose's leg has got it so he's going to die. Nature for you. Of course they're giving prayer a try._

_November 12th_

_Left bottle of antibiotics on a rock outside their camp last night. They thanked God (Dee-os) of course. As though that asshole saw fit to burn the world but still cared enough to leave some medicine on a rock._

_November 15th_

_Jose will always limp but otherwise he'll be okay. Good deed for the month._

_Will they make it through the winter?_

_**Year 2096**_

_February 11th_

_Fuckers killed all the men. I think they would've taken the women alive but Maria and Selena opened fire and some of the others went for their guns so they shot them down and some of the kids with them._

_If I could've warned them._

_February 12th_

_Elena and Carmen and 5 children still alive, being kept in a pen._

_There are more than 100 of these assholes in blue suits. Every suit says "22" on the back. Why? Armed to the teeth with submachine guns, pistols. Estimate 60% male. Everyone seems to follow the dark-haired guy but can't get close enough to tell. Assholes are disciplined - patrols, sentries - they mean business._

_Say I go in at night and get the women and children out. Where to next?_

_But I have to get them out. Have to._

_February 13th_

_Recon during night._

_Well-organized, sentries along most approaches, but stream not covered._

_Are they sick? Lots of coughing fits. Tuberculosis?_

_Women and children still in pen. Will try to infiltrate by stream tomorrow night._

_February 14th_

_They ate them._

_February 19th_

_Ambush along riverside trail. 6 males killed. Heard their coughing a mile away._

_Used their grenades to booby-trap bodies, kept half. Secured 6 SMGs, 500 rounds 10mm, 6 frags._

_February 20th_

_Ambush along riverside trail. 2 males died checking bodies. Killed 2 more with rifle. Shot 1 through calf and let asshole crawl off to spread message. Coughed like I'd shot him through lungs._

_February 23rd_

_Ambush half-mile east of coal pits wash. 8 males killed._

_February 28th_

_Ambush in the narrows. 6 males killed. Took a 10mm through thigh, steel jacket, missed femoral. Lucky. Used tourniquet to make sure no blood spattered on rocks back to cave. Have set traps all along entrance passage but if they find me it will be matter of time. Still, 24 confirmed kills in 10 days = at least 1/3rd of their combat force, not bad for an old man._

_March 2nd_

_Lucky lucky lucky lucky. Patrol was small - 3 men. Screaming woke me - point man caught under deadfall. Panic fire ricocheted into the cave, almost hit me. Crawled forward and killed them all with SMGs. Nearly used frags, stupid, finger in pin when remembered ricochets._

_Leaving at once. No other patrols in area but they'll be searching narrows for these 3. Taking as much food as I can drag with me and heading to cave south._

_**Year 2097**_

_January 13th_

_The Coughers are gone finally. All 34 that still lived. Ate their dead for strength, then struck out SE._

_Victory. 10 months of killing. All I feel is cold._

_They deserved every goddamn bit of it._

_January 17th_

_Thought I was dreaming but the screams were real. For a moment thought they'd tricked me, just pretended to leave Zion, then sent a patrol to track me down. But the screams were a woman's._

_Edged around corner in passageway to have a look. One Vaulter, ankle deep in bear trap. Leveled my SMG but the way she was crying stopped me._

_How she screamed when she saw me. Been their boogey man a long time._

_Name's Sylvie. Claims she ran away from them. Calls them evil people, "children of the devil". Turns out they were sick after all, something they caught in a Vault they lived in. She never came down with it (yet)._

_So help me, I've wound up being her nurse._

_January 18th_

_Her story matches what I learned from my "interrogations" last year, but according to her - let's just say it was bad to be a woman in that group. So when they left, she slipped away._

_She knows nothing about living outside a Vault. Says she wants to learn._

_**Year 2100**_

_September 9th_

_Never been so scared in my life._

_Canada wasn't scary, just sickening, the criminality of it._

_The end of the world wasn't scary. When I knew you and Alex were dead, I didn't have anything left to be scared about. I just went on for some reason._

_I wasn't scared fighting the Vaulters. It was like I kept daring them to finish me. When I killed them, I think it was the closest I came to being happy in years_

_Sylvie is pregnant. And I am terrified._

_Ridiculous old man. A father again at 47. In this world?_

_She's so excited and so - trusting. Says it's God's will that we have this child. Like nothing can go wrong._

_You see, Char, she doesn't know about you and Alex. Never told her. Almost did sometimes but what you and I had, it seemed wrong to share it._

_More like an old man not wanting his young wife to know how he failed the one who come before her._

_Hiking into Toquerville for medical books and supplies. This will be done right._

_I'm sorry, Char. Hope you can forgive me._

_**Year 2101**_

_March 5th_

_Baby was breech. Would've been a son. Michael._

_Did my best to turn him. Failed. Must've done Caesarian too late. Had to put Sylvie out and she never woke up._

_Buried them south of the Narrows. Well. This time I was by their side. So much better._

_I think I can finally do it. Blow my fucking brains out all over this goddamn cave._

_**Year 2108**_

_August 22nd_

_10 sets of tracks 1/2 mile NE of canyon entrance. Barefoot?_

_August 23rd_

_Saw them through scope. Corpses walking around. Finally gone crazy. Dementia maybe._

_August 24th_

_I'm not crazy, they're real. Goddammit they are real._

_Rushed me the moment they saw me, snarling like animals. They look like corpses but don't smell rotted._

_I'll be putting them out of their misery. Doing for them what I never could for myself._

_September 3rd_

_The last of them. All gone._

_**Year 2113**_

_February 5th_

_Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday you useless old dinosaur, happy birthday to me._

_Happy 60th. What do you get a man who has everything?_

_A bottle of whiskey and a 12 gauge slug through the roof of the mouth! Whoo!_

_Come now. What do I have to do to prove to myself that I've lived long enough?_

_I'm a shriveled old man. White beard. Seen enough sunrises and sunsets. Saw the big sunset, been hanging on through the long night 36 years now. Ridiculous._

_Not kidding myself into thinking there's anything on the other side of this. Fine. Things weren't so bad before I was born._

_Char and Alex. Sylvie and Michael-who-could've-been._

_Thoughts of the beloved dead before dying._

_Goodbye, Zion._

_February 6th_

_Fucking didn't do it, coward as usual. Maybe two bottles next year._

_**Year 2123**_

_April 25th_

_24 of them, half boys, half girls. Youngest is 8 maybe, oldest 13-14. Dirty and scrawny, been on foot a long time. Children's crusade._

_Struck camp on nearly the same spot as los mexicanos, 30 years and a lifetime ago._

_I've spent 2 nights listening to them. English. Literate. One of them reads stories while the little ones fall asleep._

_They escaped someplace they call "The School" but can't figure out where it was. When they want little one to behave they tell him to stop or "The Principal will get you."_

_Principal better not show up or I'll blow his goddamn head off. I can still shoot straight._

_**Year 2124**_

_January 2nd_

_I've been leaving notes for them, and gifts._

_They like the books. Started with stories but moved on to weapons manuals, medical books, practical stuff._

_In the notes, well it's embarrassing, almost like those cards people used to give each other, everything sweet and loving. I tell them to read and to learn and to make the most of their new home. I tell them I'm giving them Zion as a gift to make up for all the sorrows of their lives so far and all the sorrows man has visited on man. I tell them to be kind to each other and modest. I tell them never to hurt each other but that if someone else comes along and tries to hurt them to strike back with righteous anger. Stuff like that. I sign every note "The Father", because well, just because._

_January 18th_

_Have I mentioned that I'm dying?_

_Mind's still sharp. Lungs are the problem. Might be cancer. Cough's been getting worse for months, finally there's blood in it. Getting harder to visit my little friends, breath's so short._

_I've given away most of what I own. They'll find the rest in caves when they get a little older. I don't want them to find me, though. "The Father" is a broken-down old man? Disappointment._

_It's time. I don't want another birthday._

_January 23rd_

_It's cold enough that I won't last long on the high mound up next to Red Gate. I think I've got enough breath left in me to make it. I'll just lie down and stare at the sky. Feels right._

_I hope they'll do well. I hope no harm comes to them, from within or without. Did my best to prepare them with the last notes. Said something kind about each one of them, what makes each one special. Told them "The Father" was pleased by their kind natures and that it would be up to them to handle things on their own from now on, that I'd be silent but still watching and still caring._

_Lying, then. Oh yes._

_Lied to you, Char. And Alex. And Sylvie. Told you I'd be with you forever. But I wouldn't go back and unsay it once if I could._

_What was the point of it all? So many failures._

_But I never forgot your face. Or Little Nut's. Or (sorry) Sylvie's. They used to say that happened after a while but it never did for me._

_Maybe the only point of all that living was to keep those pictures in my head going for as long as I could. It was the only life I could give you. Not a day went by without._

_It wasn't choice. I chose to die again and again. Just never did. Body had its own drive._

_Well, the little ones will need it. Species will need it if it's to continue. That blind drive onward._

_I wish them well. It's been a gift to me, at the end of it all, to behold innocence._

_Goodbye, Zion._

_Randall Dean Clark_

_Feb 5th, 2053 - Jan 2124_

**~Nameless Grave~**

"_All roads wind down to the same spot. The Grave."_

**Two**

**The Road of Faith**

**Honest Hearts**

_**[END]**_


	34. Prologue: Rebuy

I have news that is good and bad for me, and probably mostly bad for you guys. Because of the inconsistent nature of my job I sometimes have a lot of free time, and I sometimes have none. The last time I had none it didn't last too long and I had a good backlog built up. This time however, it seems it'll be flat tack for a few weeks, and my backlog isn't as large thanks to my recent holiday.

Unfortunately this means I'm going to be skipping a weekend here and there. Next weekend I'll have the first full hand up on time, but the following week I might have to let it go, and the next few hands might slip into a bi-weekly schedule instead. I'll get back on track once this workflow slows down, but I'm afraid for now real life's busy kicking my ass into a different gear.

Still, no reason we can't at least get things started!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rebuy<strong>_

_8th January, 2282_

"The courier who dealt with Benny? Sure, everyone knows that story. Guy took out an entire floor of the Tops and chased the guy up a building. Shot him on the roof and then jumped the balcony when the NCR tried to apprehend him."

"Jumped?"

"Yeah. Reckon he had some device rigged up so that when he hit the ground he was fine. Maybe he just stuck a mattress down there. Whatever he did he was gone by the time anyone showed up. They grabbed the girl who was there with him and tried to question her. That's when House intervened."

One of the men in the bar tilted his head and looked across at the conversation as it unfolded. It was a topic that continued to pop up, and he'd come to Vegas with the intent of hearing more ahead of the prodigal son's return.

The patron listening to the bartender's tale seemed satisfied with its conclusion, but he was interested in digging deeper.

"What next?" he asked, picking up the drink that he hadn't even touched and moving to sit at the counter to hear more.

"You didn't hear?" the bartender wondered, moving further down to refill someone's glass with wine.

The Atomic Wrangler was no high-class establishment, but what it lacked in class it made up for in character. If one was into those sorts of crime houses. Run by the Garret twins, it stood as Freeside's primary watering hole, providing drink, gambling, and prostitutes to anyone with a little bit of money to spend, or enough collateral to warrant a tab. A miniature casino, no rival to anything on the Strip but without a rival outside of it, it drew the poor in and kept them poor.

None of his concern whatsoever. The weak stayed weak, the poor stayed poor, the rich stayed rich, and couriers stayed alive.

"No. Would you mind explaining?" he pressed.

"Sure, if it you wanna know," the bartender said with a shrug. "House had a whole squad of Securitrons waiting for the army boys when they brought the girl outside in custody. They gave 'em one chance to release her and go back to the embassy until he'd come up with a few new regulations. One of the NCR police got uppity. Started carrying on about how they were peace keepers, how they were bringing civilisation and something about liberation."

"Of course," he said, unsurprised, in a voice as deep as the Grand Canyon. "Go on."

"House killed him. Well, the Securitron did. Ripped him apart with their hand machine gun things. The others panicked. Half ran for the embassy, the others stuck around and tried to attack the Securitrons. Ho-ly shit, you could hear it from Freeside. NCR with guns on the Strip, from what I hear, was totally off limits, and they actually got into an open battle with the Securitrons right there in the street holding guns."

"Arrogance."

"No kidding. Now I don't give a flying fuck about House and his rules, but when you come into a man's house you respect his home, especially while you're under the roof, you know?"

"Don't spend much time indoors."

"You know what I mean though. House got pretty damn angry over it, firstly because of how jumpy they got about the courier himself, and then because they tried to use it as an excuse to get a better foothold on his turf by slipping bullets into the equation. He set the robots on them. One warning went out across the entire Strip's loudspeakers, through every casino and over the radios that play on the streets. Could probably hear it from McCarran," the bartender continued. "Telling the all NCR personnel to go to the embassy, and anyone seen heading in any direction but that would be shot without further warning."

"The furious god, pressing the heathens from his land."

"If you want to get prissy about it, sure. From what I heard it was a lot of threats and more than a little gunfire. The NCR back-pedalled pretty damn fast afterwards though, and House sent some crazy cowboy robot down to the embassy to discuss terms. Before you know it he's acting like nothing's wrong, except now the NCR don't get any weapons on the Strip and no authority outside the embassy either."

The mysterious Mr. House had taken a firm grip on his land and violently shifted the presence of the foreign power out. He'd made the NCR look like the ones in the wrong in doing so, but the Bear would still call him the villain, and regardless of who was in the wrong, it strained an already tenuous connection.

But the political situation meant nothing.

"Why did the NCR target him?"

The bartender shrugged. "Now that I don't know. A few rumours going around, but you want a good lead you'll have to talk to someone with a few connections. Might be a few people around, maybe even a few in this casino, but… well, you know what information is like," he said with a greedy smile.

Without a word his numb hands produced a small stack of bottle caps.

The bartender swiped them off the table before anyone else could even lay eyes on it. "You want van Graff. Gloria, not her psycho brother. She's got connections in the NCR, hears a lot of things you wouldn't expect a weapons dealer to hear."

The stranger was already moving for the door by the time the bartender finished his sentence. His drink remained completely untouched on the table.

The air in Freeside was almost thick with the stories of poverty that smell alone could tell, to say nothing of the sounds or sights that went with it.

But they were meaningless.

The Silver Rush was a casino whose owner had run afoul of the van Graff crime family, another of the special exports that the Bear offered with its presence. After he was dead, the family repurposed it into the energy weapons mega-goliath it was today, an armament built from Brotherhood of Steel caches across California, the contents of which had been either stolen by or used to bribe the family for their various services and blessings. The dangerous weapons cut through armour that lead could not, but were considerably rarer than the conventional firearm, making ammunition a constant concern to anyone who wasn't either a criminal overlord or a member of the techno-worshipping tribe.

Old Glory in his hand, he pressed on to discover what exactly it was that had so provoked the Bear, and beyond that as much as he could about this entity calling itself Six.

_~ Who are you, that do not know your history? ~_

_9th January, 2282_

The streets of Freeside were nothing more than canals of sewage, the garbage of New Vegas flowing up and down them with their motivations and their methods. But not all of them were bad people. In fact, even those who would gladly kill before the day was out were not without sympathy. Their reasons were many; some needed the food, and would not last another day, some did it to settle debts and cement places to stay or care for families.

There were always darker reasons, though. Those who killed over emotion, or to settle debts that could go unsettled without harming anyone. These people, were they evil? To knowingly visit harm on others, to become the obstacles to block the roads of others, perhaps permanently; was such an act one of revulsion, something to be righteously counter with eyes bright and morals strong?

Perhaps.

But the dilapidated streets of Freeside, the eastern district of New Vegas, the neon city that had survived the death of the world and weathered the flames that followed it, were not the concern of one man as he passed through.

He cared what happened to them, that was no lie, but right now his objective lay beyond the gateway to the Strip. In the heart of New Vegas, where the Old World still lived, sat a treasure trove of answers to questions that had been burning deep within his mind for months.

Courier Six nodded silently as he passed by a group of three young men, all dressed in leather jackets and wearing the closest thing any of them could find to hair product. The Kings were having a difficult time trying to hold a lid on the rising tension within the district. Squatters from one of the rival nations competing for control of the Mojave wasteland were piling up left and right, and none of them were happy to find themselves stuck in the slums. The locals took to it no better; there wasn't enough food and space to go around as it was.

The western wall of Freeside bordered the Strip, towers filled with light looming over the people of the slums and flaunting their wealth in the faces of the poor.

Far above everything else, rising above every other structure in the region, was the Lucky 38, an enormous tower topped with a wide disc, a roulette wheel for the heavens to play on. Somewhere high up in that huge structure sat the unseen overlord of New Vegas, enigmatic Mr. House, the despot who controlled his city through the numerous robotic beings that served as his eyes, ears, and most importantly, his hands.

Six of them were stationed at the Strip's gate guarding the rich from the desperate, keeping the filth on the appropriate side of the wall.

Old military boots that had been worn in over the past week and a half paced over the asphalt that remained of what had once been a road for cars, now barely even usable for foot traffic. A grey duster hung over his shoulders, licking at his heels. A tribal pattern dominated one corner at its base, a replaced patch courtesy of a grateful people. Underneath were jeans that were steadily decaying from wear and tear; patches of thinned fabric and an oval of rips from a very hungry dog characterised the leggings, rising up to a very dirty blue shirt hidden beneath a more practical vest of the sort used to stop the progress of a bullet.

A beard had grown in on his face over the course of his time travelling that he hadn't bothered to trim. His last razor was lost in the neck of a cocky raider, and he didn't mind the extra hair while he travelled.

His brown eyes were set firmly on his destination, between two of the hulking Securitrons. Resting on his head was a wide brimmed hat he'd picked up on the road, finding a kind of cartoonish joy in walking down the road with it providing some well-enjoyed shade.

Black hair had grown from his head to further down his neck than he was used to, something that did not yet nag at him, but which he knew eventually would. He'd solve that in a little while.

He reached into his pocket and drew the passport one of his few allies in Freeside had made for him. An impressive forgery, close enough to the real thing to trick the machines and their programming.

Tricking them became less important when the Securitron reading it suddenly stalled, the television screen that made its face turning blank for a few seconds before being replaced by a beaming cowboy.

"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in," Victor said happily.

"Alright, you got me, I left without saying goodbye," the courier replied, mock-defeat in his voice.

"You'd better be stayin' in town more than a night this time. Lots of people wanna talk to you," the robot cowboy said, rolling back his single wheel and letting the mail man pass into the Strip.

"I've got a few things to do in this place before I leave. I think I'll stick around."

"You'd better!" Victor exclaimed. "Huh… now that's odd. According to the records you came through the gate yesterday."

The courier shrugged. "I only just here. You sure your date's set right?" he asked.

Victor paused. "The records clearly state that yesterday at 15:18 'Courier Six' passed through here and into the Strip."

"It's barely midday."

Victor paused again, his screen going dark. It was replaced by a video from the machine's internal recordings, showing the time Victory had specified. It showed the empty street. As if from nowhere a small card appeared in front of the Securitron's monitor, balanced carefully just in place for it to be read.

"Passport accepted. Welcome to the Strip… 'Courier Six'," the machine greeted in its metallic tones.

The passport disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and as the traveller squinted he could see the air shimmer and ripple for a few moments before everything was still once more.

The man who called himself Courier Six stared at the screen a little longer, puzzling over what he had just seen, before turning his eyes back towards the Strip of New Vegas as its gates opened, admitting him access to the biggest minefield in the Mojave.

"This could be interesting."

_~Rebuy: An option in some games wherein a player can buy in a second time, bringing their chip stack back to its initial level. In informal games this is often used as a way to keep playing after one's chips have all been lost._

**~Nameless Grave~**

"_All roads wind down to the same spot. The Grave."_

**Three**

**The Road of Blood**

**CITY OF SIN**


	35. Sixteenth Hand: King of Diamonds

Paganjames: Huh, you're the first to point that out, actually. And it's a good point, that was a total failure on my part, hahahaha. I'll go back and set that right._**  
><strong>_

This chapter also introduces the new scheme we'll be using going forward, now that the three current protagonists are all essentially in the same location. This chapter might seem a little cluttered towards the back end, but that's sort of the feel I'm going for with the Strip being a hub of activity with all sorts of people coming and going, and all the different situations coming from all these different folk rubbing shoulders.

Whatever else though, as always, enjoy!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Sixteenth Hand – King of Diamonds<strong>_

_The Courier_

_8th January, 2282 (11:38am)_

The neon lights of the New Vegas Strip glowed in the midday sun. At full power when the stars revealed themselves, the buildings kept plenty of their lustre even during the day, beaming gloriously at the patrons who wandered the pavement in awe and alcohol induced stupor.

The last time Courier Six had walked in the Strip had been dotted with wandering NCR personnel in uniform, holding nightclubs without guns as per their accord with House. Now the only NCR in uniform were the ones stumbling drunk back towards the NCR, no guns, no nightclubs, just about nothing at all beyond their uniform it seemed.

The other residents of the Strip eyed them warily as the few drunk soldiers stumbled back towards the closest thing to a home on the Strip they had, less trust in the outsiders than they previously had.

Between the buildings flowed music from various loudspeakers perched atop streetlights, jaunty tunes from long-dead musicians punctuated by announcements from Mr. New Vegas, the Strip-native DJ who kept tabs on everything going on in the Mojave.

As he took in the sights of neon, the sounds of chatter and echoing music, and the oddly clean smell despite the Strip's surrounding districts, a song faded out and Mr. New Vegas began another announcement documenting increased Fiend aggression ever since the slaying of one of their leaders at the hands of an NCR hit squad, a strategic assassination thought up by General Oliver himself.

Taking a deep breath and relishing that no Freeside pathogens snuck in with it, Courier Six set off down the street.

But… where?

He paused almost as soon as he'd begun. He couldn't realistically walk back into the Tops even if Rachel was there. The Stacked Deck was unlikely to yield anything but an empty penthouse. He didn't actually know where to look for his friends. They might have already left for other places for all he knew.

He'd have to start somewhere though, and perhaps simply moving would help him reach his eventual destination.

As he strode with purpose towards nothing in particular a Securitron casually rolled behind him, its screen flickering to be replaced by Victor, the AI who could apparently hop from machine to machine as he desired.

"Partner, I can't help but notice you neglecting the boss' invitation," the cowboy pointed out, speeding up to overtake the Courier and block his path.

A hand went up to his top pocket. Sitting inside was a poker chip made of platinum. It had become something of a lucky charm to him, and somehow he'd managed to forget the real reason he was carrying it. "Where are my manners? I'm looking for my friends though, Victor. Your boss wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would he?"

"The boss man knows a lot of things. I bet he knows exactly where your buddies are too. But you wanna ask him, you're gonna have to ask him yourself," Victor stated, tilting towards the Lucky 38, the massive tower piercing the sky.

"Alright, I'm a courier, I should make my delivery. But I thought I was just delivering it to an agent at the gate anyway?" the Wanderer pointed out.

"Things've changed," Victory said simply, the screen flickering back to the policeman's face. "Move along citizen," it said robotically.

The base of the Lucky 38 was a wide circle of black and red, a motif of fortune that rose a few steps to the establishment's heavy doors, sealed shut for years.

As he approached a Securitron idling beside the enormous tower was overtaken by Victor, who beamed at him in the same static smile he always had.

Curious how Victor was a 'he' to Six. He was a robot designed to be jovial, and that was really all he did when he wasn't using the body he was in to shoot Six's enemies, yet he still managed to have a personality underneath the programming.

Maybe it was something about the science back before the world ended, but it seemed that the longer a robot stayed active the more it grew beyond its programming. Some even managed to have more personality than some humans. And more free will, curiously. Perhaps that was a sad thing to say of some men, or perhaps it was an inspiring thing to say of some machines, but either way it was amazing to think of.

Not that Six managed to ever thing long and hard about what kind of science that involved. He'd come to the conclusion while travelling back from Zion that part of the reason he liked Rachel must have been because, as a Follower, she had scientific knowledge he didn't, and that made sure she could always surprise him. He didn't remember much of her, but it sounded about right.

There was a loud grinding sound as the door began to open, an enormous slab of black metal emblazoned with a red diamond slowly sliding left, slotting in behind a large red slab with a black spade marked upon it. The red panel beside it moved opposite, a black club sliding in behind the black panel with a red heart on it.

Beyond was a small, dark antechamber, a roulette wheel encompassing the Lucky 38's name on the ground as if it had been freshly painted there only days prior.

The door was grey, windowless with a handle extending from it, curving to run down parallel to the wall and then curving to disappear back into the door once again.

As he reached for it he could feel eyes on his back. He tilted his head back and saw a crowd gathering at the base of the Lucky 38's stairs. Gawking at the tower that had never in their lifetime opened for a human being, and not once in two centuries for the purpose of letting someone enter instead of letting Securitrons flow out.

They continued to stare as the man in the grey coat walked in. Rumours were flooding through the crowd already; House was recruiting human agents. The NCR had finally managed to negotiate a better deal. Someone had found out how to hack the tower's defence. The fabled Courier actually was House himself!

The music and voices faded behind him as he entered the darkness of the enormous structure, the door automatically closing behind him.

Slowly his eyes adjusted to the dim beyond.

The entrance opened out into a hall, thought he couldn't see how far it reached. A short staircase made its way down to the gambling area directly in front of him, only a few feet below ground level. Slot machines were in rows.

As he stepped forward to see further into the casino he heard the sound of a machine behind him.

Spinning, he saw two Securitrons flanking the entrance. One had the policeman's face. The other had Victor's.

"So here I am. What now?" the Courier wondered.

Victor continued grinning, one of his arms rising and pointing across the room.

Lights began to flicker with life, slowly illuminating the entire place.

The slot machines and poker tables all sat in the lowered section of the floor, a huge ring of gambler's delight around a wide central pillar. Around its top was a white ring of metal, four arching legs coming down from it and a sign beaming at the Courier as the light returned once again declaring that this was the Lucky 38, underneath declaring that they had gambling, cards, slots, and fun. To the left a staircase wound up to a raised section where the bar and cashiers office were located, with a high rollers table looking down over the nonexistent rabble of lesser fortune-seekers below.

To the right was a collection of tables and chairs for eating and drinking or simple socialising, an environment for friends to collect and discuss their success or failures over a meal.

Five more Securitrons idled about the room, two amongst the slot machines, one barely noticeable back in the cafeteria, and one next to the high roller's table. The final turned towards him as he approached and promptly became Victor.

The large pillar in the centre of the room was an elevator, its steel doors unopened for years. As always the cowboy beamed at the Courier's approach.

"Do you ever get tired of hopping from robot to robot like that?" the Courier wondered.

"Not at all," Victor replied happily, an arm reaching out to point as the elevator doors opened. "Head on in. Penthouse floor."

Committed to wherever he was going now, the Courier stepped into the elevator and turned towards the panel of buttons to select his destination. The doors were already sliding shut before he even had time to squint at all the little numbers on the buttons. With a shudder the metal box began its ascension.

The elevator shaft was placed in the Lucky 38's interior, which Courier Six noted as a missed opportunity to see the scenery as he rose above it. Maybe it was for security reasons though; glass wasn't as sturdy as massive amounts of concrete.

There was silence beyond the sound of the elevator pulling him into the sky, up above the buildings, the people and their squabbles, into the looming sky above where the god of New Vegas waited to meet with a human for the first time in centuries.

A story to tell Rachel and Veronica when he found them, alright.

Finally the doors opened again, and the Courier stepped out into the penthouse floor, higher in the air than he'd ever been before in his life, both before and after it was forcibly restarted.

For once the Securitron that greeted him was not Victor. The screen instead displayed the smiling face of a young woman, who tilted her metal arm towards a doorway to the Courier's left.

He took a moment before he followed her, looking around the room. He was on a balcony overlooking what seemed to be a lounge. In one corner two couches sat around a wooden table, finely made oak protected by the cream coloured cushions.

Plants were dotted in front of the windows, which ran the entire span of the room and probably all the way around the entire penthouse; the outward facing walls were all glass, staring out over the Mojave.

"Sugar?" the Securitron woman asked, noticing the delivery man's hesitance to follow her directions.

"Just… do you mind if I have a look out the window first?" he asked, his eyes hungrily gazing at the landscape.

She rolled back a little on the single wheel and giggled. "Of course not, Mr. House doesn't mind waiting a little longer," she replied.

Six nearly tripped in his hurry to race down the winding staircase connecting the balcony to the main level of the penthouse.

He stepped up to the window, placing his hands on the glass and staring out like a child. Far below he could see the Strip and its hustle and bustle. Beyond that the north face of the Lucky 38 could see all of Freeside festering to the east, and the equally run-down Westside on the opposite side of Vegas' heart.

Beyond that was the cityscape of New Vegas, the ruined and dilapidated buildings lying in piles, slumped back in disrepair or still trying desperately to claw back the height that time had stolen from them. The Strip pulsed at its heart, but New Vegas had a long way to go before it would look like the ancient city it was born from.

Beyond that was the Mojave herself, dusty roads and rocky outcroppings, crests and valleys and abandoned campfires ready to be rekindled. The past, lying half-buried in a sandstorm, ready to be reclaimed.

Far, far beyond the mountains that bordered his vision, away over the northern plains was Zion and the people he'd found there. He reached up and patted the feathers on his arm like he would a comrade's shoulder.

East, in lands he could not see from his vantage point, was Arizona and the Legion's land. West, again hidden from him, was California and the Republic that dwelled within it. Both nations were here in Mojave for what existed below him, and all the lands it claimed sovereignty to.

Finally he stepped back from the window and looked across at the doorway which would lead to House. Purple drapes hung from it, not a speck of dust on them. Compared to the Wasteland this place seemed frighteningly clean.

Afraid they'd disintegrate as he touched them, the Courier gingerly brushed one aside. When it didn't, he pulled the other back and stepped through into the room beyond.

Two staircases wound back up to the balcony he'd found himself on when he stepped out of the elevator. Book shelves lined the wall behind it, accumulated knowledge from generations ago preserved with diamond perfection for decades.

In front of the window, flanked by a pair of Securitrons, was Mr. House.

Rather, an enormous screen with a picture of him fixed on it was sitting in front of the glass, a console in front of it hooked into both his screen and a number of others, four on his right showing security footage of the Lucky 38's ground floor, both inside and out, and the other giving readouts of constantly changing data, from reactor power levels to number of Securitrons currently in operation, to the current profit margin of Gomorrah, and more.

"You've been a busy courier, haven't you? You take your obligation to deliver a package very seriously – an ethic for which I am grateful," came House's voice from the screen, metallic but refined underneath that.

The picture displayed showed House in his prime business years, a middle aged man with a pale complexion, dark brown hair that the green tint on his screen turned black. Because of the angle of the screen his jaw seemed large and masculine, though it was not solely a trick of the angle.

He sported a thick, dark moustache above his upper lip, with his hair well-combed and parted just right of centre. His eyes must have been brown, the green tint turned them the same colour as his hair, and one of his deep dark eyebrows was slightly cocked, a fixed look of appraisal and scheming that he must have practiced for hours before finally getting it right.

The top of an expensive business suit and tie faded out underneath his neck.

Either that or he was naturally good at being an insufferable genius.

"I will admit, when you went after Benny without first consulting me I predicted… negative outcomes," House continued. The screen didn't move, but at least his tone varied in his speech. A human touch was always nice. "But – you have a way of exceeding expectations, don't you?"

"Soon enough I'm going to have trouble getting people to underestimate me," the Courier replied, looking over the screens and wondering if there was a short little man sitting behind a curtain somewhere talking into a microphone.

"This meeting has been a long time coming, hasn't it?" House said climactically. "You've come a long ways, literally and, I suspect, figuratively as well."

Courier Six took a moment to think back to the day only a few months ago when he'd been shot in the head, and how not long after he'd stepped out of Doctor Mitchell's office and returned to his job. He'd learned so much since then. Or relearned. Perhaps a little of both.

"I have to ask – now that you've had a little time to take it in, what do you make of your destination?" the screen asked.

The Courier cast a glance outside. "It's a city devoted to sin and vice, pandering to the wealthy and promising luxury, glory, and even more wealth to anyone who can get in. I suppose I should be in rapture with how fantastic it all is, right?"

"Oh come now – don't play the fool. Vegas has fools enough, a superfluity of them. They're what makes it so profitable," House retorted, unimpressed. The screen flickered, and House's image rolled up to the top of the screen and then reset to its correct size. "They come to Vegas chasing penny-ante dreams of high-living. To feel like they're big shots. Like they're winners."

"That's the gambler's game, alright. Roll the die, then blame all your failures on fortune," the Courier replied, casting another glance out to the landscape. "Too many fools in search of that quick escape, and just enough who manage it to keep the hope bright enough to try."

"You see that you and I are of a different stripe, don't you? We don't have to dream that we're important," Mr. House replied, and though the screen didn't reveal it, Six imagined it grinning. "We are."

Courier Six grinned in response. "I'm just a courier," he said, knowing that shaking the capitalisation in his title was becoming less and less likely. Being the first human since the Great War to enter the Lucky 38 was probably the point at which he could give up on being a courier instead of the Courier.

"Oh, don't be coy. You've been playing a high-stakes game ever since Victor dug you out of the ground. Don't be afraid to admit it," the screen declared.

"Speaking of Victor, you wouldn't happen to know anything about his actions that night, now would you?" the courier questioned, directed away from House's intended point to get a few answers for himself.

"Goodsprings is a bit far for me to control a Securitron by remote, but I can still send packets of data at least. Victor's combat algorithms determined the proper course of action. Benny and his thugs were more than a match for a lone Securitron," House explained, apparently fine with being redirected for the moment. "When he alerted me, I instructed him to approach the site after Benny and the others had departed."

The Courier gestured down the length of his body. "And ta-da," he chuckled.

He meant to press further, but House cut him off with the same subject. "So, Benny has been handled and you've recovered the platinum chip. Let's have it."

Six reached into his pocket and drew the small shiny disc, holding it up in front of the screen where he expected the Wizard of Vegas could see it. "What exactly is this thing?"

"Such a small thing, isn't it? And yet so… capacious. So very dear," came House's answer, part answer to the Courier's question, part quiet reverence of a moment of triumph at last. "Decades of hiring salvagers out west to search for this little relic in the ruins of a place called Sunnyvale. Back then, anyway. That's where the chip was printed, on October 22, 2077. It was to have been hand-delivered to me here, at the Lucky 38, the next day. But the bombs fell first. Suffice it to say, the delivery was never made."

"Bad timing," the Courier commented, gleaning what he could from the story, unsure about House's real intentions behind the wall of grandiose self-gratification. Throwing caution to the wind and banking on what was at least a façade of politeness, the Courier ventured a stab at the future. "Now what?"

"A great deal, is what," House responded, and this time he almost swore the mouth could smile without moving. "A cascade of events, with you taking a central role."

"I'm a Courier."

"A Courier who was shot in the head and then tracked a man across the Mojave to murder him in the heart of the one city he believed himself defended. I've told you already, there's no need to downplay your abilities," House pointed out a second time.

He was being talked up, that was obvious. House was appealing to his ego, and the Courier would have been lying if he'd said it wasn't at least nice. But there were still too many unknowns.

Ultimately there wasn't much he could do from inside the Lucky 38 anyway. If House decided he didn't like him anymore it would be an impossibly simple manner for the Courier's accomplishments to end at being the one living person to get into the Lucky 38. Best to at least play along for now, and learn more.

"Alright, then let's get on with it," he decided.

"Good. At the moment, all you need to do is take the elevator all the way down to the bottom level. You'll understand soon enough," House instructed. One of the Securitrons was overtaken by Victor once again, and he rolled forward to claim the chip in his robotic hand.

Reluctantly, Courier Six dropped the item into the cowboy robot's pincers. It felt wrong to let it go. Not because he worried about what would happen now that House had it, that was equal parts intrigue and caution, but because it had gained a sentimental element in his brief time knowing it.

Carrying it had been his death, and claiming it from Benny's body had been his moment of victory over the reaper. It was his platinum medal for crossing the finish line.

But then, from the beginning he'd just been delivering it here. It had to change hands eventually.

Accepting that, he turned and walked back to the elevator, stepping past a Securitron and into the small, enclosed space.

Once again it shuddered to life, this time sinking down, back to the ground floor and even lower. A long descent into the darkness beneath the earth. The Courier didn't like being in the elevator. His previous want for a window was louder in his mind this time, because now instead of going up to a place of sky and light he was sinking into claustrophobic darkness and earth.

It was bad enough crawling through dark ruins without a sky over his head.

When finally the elevator doors opened he gratefully stepped out into a spacious chamber. It was steel, pipes and walkways. A metal staircase flowed down from the elevator to a wide observation platform, below which was a pit that looked as though it had been set up for a military skirmish.

Sandbags were piled in rows for cover, and two doors sat on opposite sides of the pit, facing each other.

As the Courier approached the rail that ran across the front of the viewing platform and looked around he realised that the construction of this place looked suspiciously like that of Vault 21.

Both doors opened and two Securitrons rolled into the pit from either side, stopping behind the first row of sandbags on either side.

"I expect you're well familiar with my Securitrons by now," House's voice crackled through speakers mounted on the walls. "The titanium alloy casing that protects the electronic core deflects small arms and shrapnel easily enough."

One of the Securitrons opened fire on the other, bullets crashing into its metal frame. They dented it and bit into the metal, but clearly the machine continued to function.

"Its X25 gattling laser is deadly against soft targets at close range and can wear through heavier armour with persistence. For close range and crowd suppression they are equipped with a 9mm submachine gun."

The Securitrons exchanged fire, one firing the submachine gun, the other scorching into its foe's armour with the gattling laser.

"But you probably already knew all this," House admitted, building things up. "What you did not know is that these are the Securitrons' secondary weapons. All this time my machines have had to get by running the mark I operating system, which lacked software drivers for their primary weapons. Today, with the delivery of the platinum chip, all that changes."

The screens flickered. The policemen disappeared and the two Securitrons went idle.

Outside, at the gates to the Strip, stood a group of wanderers presenting their passports in order to once again enter Vegas' heart. The Securitron reading the passport abruptly stopped, its screen going blank. They exchanged looks of confusion.

"Behold, for the first time: the Securitrons running the mark II OS!" House declared as they rebooted.

The screens returned, but this time the police faces were nowhere to be seen. This time the faces on the Securitrons were soldiers; helmets strapped under their chin, thick stubble, a battle-ready grimace on their faces.

It was still strangely caricature, but now it at least could try to look like there were an army of them.

The enormous boxes on their shoulders opened, revealing the payload within; a stock of missiles which one promptly fired at the other, blowing it backwards to slam into the door and collapse in a heap.

"The M2-35 missile launcher gives the Securitron a much stronger weapon for significantly longer ranges, and a rapid-fire G28 grenade launcher ensures the Securitron is deadly in close range engagements," House explained as the remaining Securitron launched a volley of grenades that bounced across the room before exploding, ripping sandbags open. "The software upgrade also includes drivers for the Securitrons' highly sophisticated on-board auto-repair systems."

Sure enough, the Courier could see the downed Securitron beginning to twitch as the remaining core systems that functioned began to repair its extended array of abilities. It was by no means instantaneous, but eventually a scarred and battered Securitron rose off the ground and returned fire, its own volley of missiles exploding into its foe. One burst through the screen of its face and violently destroyed the circuits buried behind it.

This one didn't get up.

"Altogether the mark II software upgrade confers a two-hundred and fifty percent increase in combat effectiveness per unit," House explained proudly. "The city of New Vegas finally has soldiers worthy of protecting it."

The Courier watched as the last Securitron turned, the door behind it opening, and rolled away. Outside all the Securitrons in operation had undergone the same upgrade. The next time the NCR chose to get uppity they'd be in for one hell of a shock.

The balance in the city had just shifted drastically, and more than ever the Strip belonged to the king of Vegas.

"With that out of the way, let us resume our original discussions. There is much work to do," the ruler of Vegas said eventually, the doors to the elevator sliding open once again. "Come back up."

A third time in the elevator.

Courier Six was beginning to hope all this would end so that he could stop going up and down. Flipping between heaven and hell by way of claustrophobic steel box was not at all what he'd been told he'd find on the Strip. If he couldn't find Rachel by the end of the day he was going to have to indulge in something authentic and Vegas style. A prostitute was a little much, but he could at least do some gambling.

Before long he was once again in the penthouse. One of the Securitrons turned to him as he stepped out. House's face was in its screen this time.

"Trips to the basement are rarely so educational, don't you think?" he asked. "I've since broadcast the upgrade to every Securitron in range of my transmitters, and I must say, it's causing quite a stir down on the Strip!"

"A little early to show your hand like that, though, isn't it?" the Courier wondered.

The screen flickered again as the Courier approached it flanked by the Securitron.

"My dear Courier, I have shown one card. Now then, let us discuss what we shall do about the rest of them."

_~ The Stacked Deck: You'll never want to swap suites! ~_

_The Spy_

_8th January, 2282 (03:52pm)_

"Hoff was looking better already. It's amazing how much a person can do when they've got the support of their friends," Rachel said as they strode towards the Strip gate once again.

"It really is remarkable," Silvius lied. Helping the Followers hadn't been on his list of things to do in Freeside, but the drug abuse that Dixon had been fuelling had been nothing short of offensive to the Scorpion's philosophy, and Rachel had provided an adequate reason to run him just far out of town that his corpse wouldn't draw suspicion back onto the Follower who'd talked to him.

"I can't believe you got rid of that man like that, though," his female companion mentioned. "Surely you did more than just talk to him."

Silvius chuckled. "I may have used some strong words and exposed a few holes in his philosophy," he said, half-true.

"Aaron, you're a cunning fellow," Rachel said, casting him a look that was a little disapproving, but undeniably impressed.

Aaron Holmes. A fake name for a fake man.

A Follower of the Apocalypse, one of the philanthropists of the waste with no home to go back to, a man who escaped the Legion's expansion and ran to the only organisation that could help him. Over the years he became interested in politics and, though the Followers didn't appreciate it, weapons technology.

Today Aaron Holmes worked for the Followers, keeping track of political situations and recording the known procedures and motions of the NCR as something of a political history keeper and on the side researching energy weapons and the uses of the technology outside of simply turning people into glowing goop and half-dissolved skeletons.

A persona worn by Silvius, the Scorpion, proud frumentarius of Caesar's Legion.

The mask had served him well, and so far none had even thought to examine it up close.

During his stay in New Vegas he'd kept watch over the city's changing political landscape, watching with delight as the NCR's clammy hands were forced back, gleefully making offhand mentions as he walked Freeside's streets.

"Heard the NCR squatters beat one of the locals to death over a few pieces of bread yesterday." "I see the NCR have started crowding around the fountains and trying to intimidate people away from them. The Kings aren't happy." "Couple of soldier boys came through the other day, started demanding food be given to the NCR squatters because the Californians deserve it more than the Freeside scum."

Misinformation was such an easy game in a community that was already eager to reject the outsiders. A few pieces of kindling didn't look like much, but it could help a bonfire spread all the same.

Soon enough Freeside locals were boxing the NCR squatters out of using the few places where drinkable water was free and easy to get, and desperation lead to street brawls. The Kings were on Freeside's side, and even from afar Silvius could see how their leader's right hand man hated these outsiders, so when they came to crack down it was the NCR squatters attacking locals, and that was as far as the news went.

Tension continued to get thicker and thicker.

As to the Strip, he didn't even need to do anything there. The NCR's own overzealous nature had cut their influence down catastrophically, and as a result their word meant next to nothing on the Strip now.

That had pissed the heads back home off, it was clear to see. Some even advocated open aggression against House, saying that negotiations were failing, and it was time for demands.

What a perfect day to be a member of the Legion. But now news had travelled of another nature; the Courier had returned, passing through Freeside looking like he'd just walked through a forest, and heading straight for the Strip.

Rachel had promptly concluded her work and requested the spy accompany her to the Strip to see him.

He'd gladly obliged.

"Hey, I hear there's a show up on the Strip," Veronica said, catching up with them as they passed the King's School of Impersonation. "About a Courier."

"We're going to meet him now," Rachel replied with a smile.

Veronica was an unusual woman, Silvius had immediately determined. There was far more to her than the oddly bubbly surface persona, he could easily see that, even though she thought she was hiding it.

Moments of gazing off into the distance, the way she lost herself so completely in her tinkering, and of course the cracks in her happy mask that showed only when she thought nobody could see her.

There was more to that one than he'd been informed.

Accompanying her was the floating eye that he'd seen the Courier with that evening in Boulder City. As unnerving now as it had been then, the small machine occasionally spat bursts of music and beeps in a conversationalist manner that almost implied it had a personality beyond whatever strange objective it fulfilled by following the Courier.

This did nothing to diminish its unnatural qualities.

"So, what have you two been doing?" Veronica ventured as they continued striding down the street.

"Running a few errands for Julie and working on a little… project," Rachel replied coyly.

"Ooh, picking up something from the Wrangler now that your boyfriend's back in town? I hear they have some awesome nuke-shell lingerie. Talk about bombshells," the quirky woman joked, nudging Rachel lightly with her elbow.

"Remind me about that later," she laughed. "We've been helping clean up what we can. Aaron here ran one of the drug pushers out of town so that we could help people get off the stuff he was getting people hooked on."

They arrived in front of the Securitron that examined their passports before entering. Each member of the travelling party produced their credentials, Rachel holding hers up to the screen first to be read.

"Sounds like you're doing some good work," Veronica said warmly. "I've been fixing up what I can around-"

She stopped as the Securitron in front of them promptly shorted out, its screen going dark and its arms hanging limp. The other Securitrons guarding the gate did the same.

"Curious," Silvius exclaimed, looking around the seemingly dead Securitrons.

"It's like someone set off an EMP. They've all lost functionality," Rachel observed, leaning close to the Securitron and looking it over.

It sprung to life once again, its arms twitching before the screen reactivated, the face that had occupied it originally now replaced with one more grizzled and worn. The other Securitrons shared the new look.

"New duds," Veronica observed.

"Now this is an interesting development," Silvius remarked, not a lie for once. "It seems House's army of metal men want to look tougher."

"Same day as the Seeker getting back into town," Veronica pointed out.

"Troubling," Silvius agreed.

Rachel presented her passport and passed into the Strip without commenting, her eyes studying the casinos and patrons.

She settled on one sight: the Lucky 38. The doors had opened, at least one of them. Beyond that was another, guarded by one of the newly upgraded Securitrons, and probably locked besides.

But the door was open.

"He doesn't waste time, does he?" the Scorpion observed, guessing exactly where the Courier was.

"Isn't it exciting? They say Mr. House has come back! The real Mr. House!" a woman exclaimed nearby, seeing the surprise in the three travellers' faces.

"The real Mr. House?" Veronica wondered. "Him?"

"The Securitrons let him go like he owned them! The Lucky 38 opened only for him! And you must have heard about how he took out the leader of the Chairmen! Oh, that Benny and his shady dealings must have finally angered House enough to take action. I wonder if it's always been the same Mr. House? Maybe there's actually a family? We'd never know, those doors have stayed shut so long. Ohh this is exciting!"

The gossip continued raving about the rumours that had already started circulating in the hours following the Courier's entrance.

Each was just as ridiculous as the first. Apparently not only was Courier Six Mr. House, but he was also an android from Pre-War times built to safeguard the 'true America', a descendant of the Vault Dweller and Chosen One, the instrument of ruin responsible for the Divide, the first man to encounter Hoover Dam, the last of the Desert Rangers, and the latest President of the Enclave.

A disgruntled NCR soldier passed by, hearing the gossip spout off the ridiculous rumours. "You know what he is? He's a criminal who got away with it," he spat. "We try to do the right thing and arrest him and House tells us we're forbidden from using weapons on _his _land? What exactly makes it his, again? That Courier's nothing more than a crook!"

"Didn't you violate the New Vegas Treaty by sending armed men through the Strip?" Silvius pointed out.

"We were protecting it," the NCR soldier slurred, obviously drunk. "Bastard killed a man, and House was just going to let him go."

"You were after him before he killed Benny, though," Veronica said.

"He's a criminal!" the soldier yelled. "Courier criminal!"

Silvius sighed and turned back towards the Lucky 38, letting his eyes wander up its height.

Veronica followed his gaze, letting eyes rest at the windows of the penthouse high in the sky. From this far down no features could be seen, but from far up there the tiny insects in the street below were a little easier to make out for a pair of brown eyes underneath an eclipse scar.

The soldier continued belligerently rambling about how the Courier was bad news and how all he'd done had been to help Caesar's Legion take over Vegas and how House was probably in on it as well.

ED-E barked a heavy tune from a song as Rachel tapped the soldier on the shoulder and slapped him.

"It's people like you that are running California into the ground," she spat furiously. "Blame someone else, that'll make it all better! Get drunk and say someone else is the bad guy!"

The soldier was stunned into silence. Of the three travellers Rachel was usually the one who wouldn't go on the offensive.

"He's a good man," she said, her green eyes focused on the soldier's unclear brown ones.

It took a few moments, but the soldier regained his composure. "You bitch," he jumbled, raising a hand.

Silvius stepped between the two, catching the blow as the soldier threw it and gripping his arm tighter than a Follower of the Apocalypse usually would.

The soldier's eyes narrowed as he realised instead of punching an uptight tart in the face his wrist was starting to hurt and his vision was fading out.

He threw up on Silvius' shoes.

"Cease your unruly behaviour. Now," a Securitron demanded, rolling towards them.

The soldier looked at Silvius, down at his shoes, now covered in vomit, then back up to his face, and hiccupped. "Just as satisfying coming up as it was going down," he burped, stumbling backwards and wrenching his hand free, nearly tripping over.

"Rachel, nice shot," Veronica congratulated. "I don't think I've seen you angry yet. Kudos."

"I spend my days around people who are like that because their life is hell. Guys like him just do it to wallow in self-pity and blame their problems on other people. It's disgusting," Rachel spat. "Sorry about your shoes, Aaron. I owe you a new pair. White Glove stuff; that was a good catch."

"It was nothing," Silvius sighed, turning away from the lowlife and shaking his feet. He'd had his feet covered in worse, but right now he was supposed to look presentable. Hard to have a good conversation with someone when cloaked in the overpowering stench of someone else's vomit.

"So what now, we waiting until he walks back out? Who knows what's going on in there," Veronica pointed out. "Not like we can just walk up and knock on the door. Or can we…"

"Wouldn't recommend it," Silvius said, shaking his feet with an added layer of disgust to look like it was an enormous inconvenience.

He noticed someone else approaching them as they stood in the middle of the street, an uptight looking man dressed in Pre-War business clothing who didn't much look like he fit the guise.

His hair was a light brown, with a thick beard. His face was grim, scowling without any delight at being in the city of sin. His right hand was clenching and unclenching, a nervous tic. His left was held steady, a little back but trying to be inconspicuous.

Armed. Deadly.

He was out of his element; the nervousness was a sign of that. Pursuing his objective in a straight line, which would suggest he didn't do much covert work, but the ease with which he prepared to draw a gun still suggested he was used to gunfights.

The most obvious answer was that he was an extremely ham-fisted assassin. He wasn't looking at Silvius, which left one of the girls.

No time to figure out which one, and both were potentially valuable. Then again, if he was working for the NCR and he targeted Rachel, the emotional blow could be exactly what was necessary to draw the Courier away from them.

Keep analysing. He wasn't a serious threat. Too incompetent, and with this many Securitrons around the energy pistol would knock him off balance enough for one of the machines to eliminate the threat if it got ugly. Both women were disposable enough that if either died it would give the Courier less reason to work with whoever this person was an agent for, and Silvius could see that it was no Legion assassin.

"So how about…" Veronica began, trailing off as she saw the approaching man.

So he was after her.

"Malcrov?" she wondered aloud, plainly confused.

The scowl deepened and the nervousness skyrocketed. His knuckles were white, but his good hand was as steady as iron. "The Brotherhood sends its regards," the man growled in gravel tones, his hand drawing the laser pistol from its place, hidden beneath the expensive jacket.

Veronica wasn't the only one surprised. A Brotherhood member had been walking among them the whole time? What kind of insanity was this?

The surprise dulled everyone's abilities to react in time as the Brotherhood member brought the gun up to level with Veronica's head.

There was a thunderous bang, the kind no laser weapon made, and instead of Veronica falling back with a burning hole in her head, the hitman's hand exploded.

A scream hadn't even managed to burst from the man's mouth when the golden eagle plunged into his chest, two wings sharpened into dangerous points biting through fabric and flesh and forcing the man to the ground as yet another newcomer intervened.

It was over in moments, the golden staff with an eagle perched on its peak crashing into the man's head after being ripped from his torso, its beak kissing his forehead with one final goodnight.

He didn't turn around as he drew the staff back to full height and drew the revolver once again. Emblazoned on his back was the Old World flag, the twelve stars circling the thirteenth with red and white flowing down from the constellation like rivers of blood on dusty parchment.

"The Brotherhood are restless. The Circle is disbanded, lost to infighting. Guard yourself, they are turning to outcasts like you to offhand blame," the stranger warned in thick, dark tones. "Scapegoats to prolong their life."

Nobody said anything. The Securitrons stayed back, like Silvius, analysing the situation.

"And you," the stranger's deep tone continued. "Play your game. But know why your strings are pulled, not just who."

"And who exactly are you?" Silvius demanded, sparing a glance at the two women and seeing no change in their surprised faces. The sentence had been ambiguous, but there was no doubt in the Spy's mind that it had been directed squarely at him.

The dark-skinned man started walking towards the checkpoint out to Freeside. "Someone who understands action. Reaction. Consequences."

"What does that mean?" Rachel asked, taking a step to follow the man who wore history on his back, a mantle on his shoulders.

"Much."

The gate opened to let him pass, and simultaneously the door to the Lucky 38 opened.

Courier Six stepped into the light again, a flicker of the flag vanishing into Freeside leaving a moment of imbalance, of two where only one could stand.

Searing pain and vertigo assaulted Courier Six through the scar as he felt his past eclipse his present. He clung to the rail of the stairs leading down to his friends and screwed his eyes shut, but the pain relented as quickly as it had arrived.

Finally, he opened his eyes again and looked into the green eyes of Rachel. The spectre had passed.

Balance was restored, and only the cipher remained.

_~King of Diamonds: A court card of the diamonds suit, a King is a high card in any game, usually only second to an Ace though sometimes higher. Being a high card of the diamond suit, the King of Diamonds portrays supreme wealth. _


	36. Seventeenth Hand: Burn

_**Seventeenth Hand – Burn**_

_Date of Log: 8th January, 2282_

_Estimated Time of Memory: April 2262_

You sure you don't mind this? The doctor who patched me up recommended it. I think he might have been joking, but I've been recording what I see in my dreams. All I ever dream about is my past, and it's good to keep track. That way I've always got everything I knew of myself before the… accident.

_Go ahead. I'll get another drink. I know you'll want one too. Nuka cola._

Alright, great. And Six, if you're listening to these and you don't remember, right now you're sitting in the penthouse suite of a Vegas hotel with a woman named Rachel. You're fresh back from a trip to Zion to meet the Burned Man. Things are… strange for you right now. Maybe by the time you're going through these again you'll be able to make more sense of it all.

This one's from when I was young. Very young. Can't have been older than ten… in fact, I think if my memory of how old I am is accurate I would have been about seven. Maybe eight.

We were travelling, just me and my parents. The others had kept the area pretty safe, so we didn't expect to come across any trouble. Dad was making his way down to meet at some function for a bunch of his people. The 'Desert Rangers'.

Red Rock Canyon wasn't always home to the Great Khans. Years and years ago, before the tribe moved in and I joined them it was mostly empty. People still camped there, but without the safety of numbers it could be dangerous.

Dad was good with that gun, better than me, but even he had to admit how dangerous it was. So instead of passing through we took the less travelled road around the back of the canyon, a narrow pass that wound up behind it, coming down from the mountain's slopes.

It was a clear morning, thin white clouds flowing over the blue sky, wisps of vapour flowing through the air so far above us.

My feet hurt, we'd been walking for a few hours, and I could deal with that, but the days beforehand were beginning to take their toll. My legs protested every step, my eyes were drooping. I hadn't had a nuka cola in weeks.

I'm starting to remember that after I stopped drinking nuka cola bottles started disappearing around the Mojave.

There we were on the road, the heat rising off the asphalt, when dad's hand rose. "Hold on," he warned.

My eyes were getting better at spotting things too. It only took a moment before I could see it far in the distance. Something black lying on the road.

Dad drew his revolver, and we moved a little slower, him in front. After a while I realised there were two shapes, one black, one bigger, mostly orange.

That was the first time I ever saw a cazador.

Enormous and blue, with six legs splayed out. The wings were huge, orange, crumpled and bent where it had tumbled onto them and broken the thin appendage.

As we got even closer more details could be made out. The most obvious was that the cazador was dead. The reason for that followed; it's head had been viciously savaged, one of its eyes ripped entirely out of its socket, its neck hanging by a thread.

The stinger was missing; the horrific spear the giant wasps favoured using against their prey had been broken off.

The black shape moved, twitching slightly as we approached.

Dad's gun moved to aim at it, but his arm slackened. "Oh," he said quietly.

It was no beast or monster on the road. It was a dead dog, a great shaggy animal with the stinger of the cazador still buried in its side, the wasp's blood mingling with its own.

The source of the movement was not the dog, but her pup.

Three besides him lay encircled in their fallen mother's form, desperately clinging to the one who had saved them from the predator long beyond their ability to survive. Only the one pup had managed to keep itself alive for so long, but the weak twitch it had managed was the extent of its brief flicker of alarm.

Days had passed without food or drink, the cold comfort of resting alongside his siblings as they desperately hoped for their mother to awaken again slowly taking their toll.

"Poor thing," my mother sighed.

I took a step towards the aftermath of what would have been a savage struggle.

"Take a good look, son. The wasteland can be a cruel place, and death walks up and down these roads taking from whoever it pleases, be they man or beast," my father said sadly, watching me as I comprehended the sight before me.

I wonder how I'd react to a situation like that now? Heh, probably wouldn't be so different to how I had then.

I'm not ashamed to admit it; I was only eight. I walked over to that poor family of dogs and bawled my eyes out.

And that one little puppy still managing to cling to life…

Slowly my hand extended, tentatively running a solitary finger over the head of the survivor. It twitched and shivered at the contact. Poor thing was probably terrified that this was the end.

When it didn't break from the simple act of touching it I began to stroke it, petting the poor animal and attempting to comfort it.

"We can't afford to lose much time. Have a little longer, then let's put the poor thing out of its misery and get moving," dad instructed.

Until that moment I'd never really defied my father. I'd behaved poorly, thrown the odd tantrum back when I was still a little kid, but it always boiled down to dad knowing best, because he was the one who could keep us alive at the end of the day. My mother was a smart woman, but she was no survivalist. It was my father who had helped us continue as we did.

But when he said that, trying to teach a child the lesson that the Mojave doesn't care who it kills, and that sometimes death is something you can only help people achieve, not avoid, I refused to learn it. Not that day.

"We have to save it," I said solidly.

"Son, I know you want to," my father replied with a sigh. "But I'm afraid we can't. Sometimes these things happen. If we take a stray dog like this then we have another mouth to feed. On a long trip that might be the difference between living and starving."

"He can have my lunch today," I stated.

"What if he's got something? We could get sick because we took him with us and he infected us," dad explained.

"You'll fix him," I said, turning to look at my mother.

She was torn. The lesson dad was trying to teach me was a harsh lesson, but even she knew that it was true. Sometimes saving one person doomed more. If saving a single puppy killed three people, was it a trade-off worth making?

But I dare anyone to see what I saw that day and tell me they wouldn't hesitate for a damn long time to do what my father was saying we should.

He didn't want to, and I never want to meet the man who would, but years of travelling the wastes had turned my father into a realist. A pragmatist.

A kid like me, though? Not a truth I was ready for. We all start out with that idealism, and it takes years for the world to beat it out of us.

"Damien, maybe we should let him. Just this once," she said finally, taking my side.

Dad sighed. "Please don't make this harder than it needs to be. I wish he didn't have to learn it, but it might save his life one day," he replied.

"If we teach it right, that little dog might do the same thing."

"Or it could give us all some disease and we all end up dead before we reach the meeting. It's not fun thinking about the cons but someone has to. Don't make me the bad guy," dad pressed.

I continued petting the little thing, shuffling closer and trying to find a way I could ease it off the ground without breaking it.

He let out a whimpering yap as I continued.

"You can't be serious about doing that now," she sighed, looking at me. "I don't think it's even our choice at this point."

I looked up at my father, eyes staring intently at him, doing my best to look steadfast and resolute, even if I still didn't quite get those words.

"I want you both to understand what you're doing," dad said finally, his own eyes sweeping across me and the dog. "This one little act of mercy could do worse to us in the long run."

"You'll see, dad. We'll take care of him, and he'll help us," I replied firmly.

My mother moved towards me and crouched down, gently picking the puppy up. It shivered and whimpered, but she shushed it gently, holding it close to her chest.

"Get a little bit of food. Just a little, he won't be able to eat much yet," my mother instructed. I moved beside her and dug into her coat, finding the container of cut up gecko steak left over from the night before. We were going to have it for lunch that day.

I tore off a little chunk, and held it towards the puppy.

It sniffed the meat and attempted to move its weak head a little closer.

I placed the food at its jaws, and slowly they opened and managed to chew the food a few times before swallowing.

"Quick, Damien, a little water," she instructed.

Giving in, my father provided his bottle of water, unscrewing the cap. "Here," mum instructed, handing the puppy to me. He was too light for his size, I could tell right away.

She poured a little of the water into her open palm and held it under the pup's nose. After a moment his tongue flicked out to get a little of the moisture.

We continued the practice for a little while, giving it water and then a little more of the gecko meat. Mum told me that normally a puppy like that shouldn't be eating solid food yet, but we had to do the best we could on short notice.

Eventually the little creature started to look a little livelier.

"Looks like we've got another mouth to feed," my mother said with a smile on her face.

"Great. What do we call the little mongrel?" dad replied, but he wasn't angry. He didn't completely approve of how things had gone, but it's hard to say no to that kind of a scene.

"Dogmeat!" I exclaimed, trying to be funny.

Both parents wrinkled their noses at the idea.

"How about Cerberus? The little puppy found at Death's door. I'll tell you where the name comes from later," mum offered.

"Sounds too good for a mangy beast like him!" dad laughed.

"I like it!" I said.

Of course it was. Cerberus, the hound at the gates of the underworld, the afterlife, hell, or whichever place you think you go after life is over. And that was where we found that mongrel years and years ago. At the gates.

Oh, what the hell? I told Presper not to bother us. Interrupting my records…

_~ The Atomic Wrangler: The West's finest watering hole! ~_

_The Ranger_

_8th January, 2282 (06:13pm)_

"He got aggressive when I told him I was going to expose them. In the ensuing skirmish he was killed," Richard reported.

"And following that you returned here?"

"Yes. I moved from my post to pursue this inquiry, I knew what would happen if I were to turn up nothing and miss something important," the Ranger replied.

Hsu paced in front of the desk and gave Richard a pitying look.

"Oh no. Oliver's behind me, isn't he?" the Ranger sighed, partially joking, partially worried something bad was about to befall him in the form of his less lenient superior.

"Not quite," Hsu replied. "But I suggest you move quickly, or he will be more than a little agitated. The Courier has returned."

"Now I know you must be pulling my leg. Why would he come back?"

"Witnesses says there are two key reasons. The first is a woman," Hsu said.

"I've met her. Rachel. She's… a Follower," Richard reported, realising that his recent jaunt in the interest of the NCR's prosperity had ended in him blowing the brains of a Follower of the Apocalypse across a wall.

Hsu looked up at him. "I see. Well, hopefully that won't complicate things more than it already is. The Strip is a web, and we can't afford to have the NCR tripping over any threads, or that spider House is going to cocoon us tighter than he already has," he sighed without enthusiasm.

"Didn't know you knew what a spider was, sir," Morgan chuckled. "My dad used to tell me horror stories about the ones in Texas. He went into the Snared Zone once."

"I believe I read the file on that," Hsu mused, before returning the subject to its original road. "Regardless of the woman though, the other reason for the Courier's return might surprise you a little more."

"The other woman, Veronica?"

"No. He walked right into the Lucky 38. He came back to see House."

That changed things. "He's an agent?"

"Nobody knows. The rumour-mill's going insane. We can't get anything concrete beyond the fact that he went inside. Nobody knows what he did in there, of course, but the fact that he even can just made him extremely valuable. If we could get into the Lucky 38 imagine what we could do with its technology?"

"So Crocker's idea is being considered now?" Richard pressed, leaning over the desk the way he'd seen cops do it in the holovids when things were getting serious.

"Not considered. It's been given the green light, and since you're close to all this I want you to be the messenger. Last time we encountered the Courier we had guns and we were pointing them at him. You, on the other hand, he knows as something other than a soldier, especially now that you've met this 'Rachel' woman."

"I know I've asked this before, but you never give me a straight answer. Why were we gunning for him?" the Ranger demanded.

"That's classified beyond even me, Richard. I keep telling you I only know a little, and you keep pushing like I'm lying," Hsu replied, raising an eyebrow.

"Can you blame me? We shot ourselves in the foot hard over that man, and nobody has any idea why. Some of the men are calling him the 'Pirate of the Wastes' like he's been working against us from the beginning."

"We don't know he hasn't," Hsu pointed out. Morgan opened his mouth to speak but Hsu's hand rose to silence him. "Enough, Morgan. It doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you go and see him, and put the cards on the table. We can work out how we proceed once he's told us where he stands."

The Colonel opened his desk and pulled an envelope from it, placing it on the desk in front of the Ranger. Printed in red letters was a single word; 'classified'. On the back it had been sealed with duct tape, the two-headed bear of the republic stamped over it unceremoniously; a sign that General Oliver hadn't cared to put his name on the initiative. Only he and President Kimball got away with actual wax seals on their high-priority orders. Even Hanlon had to make do with tape.

"Take this, go see him, work out what we can do to help each other," Ranger Morgan summarised.

"Great. I have to get back to McCarran. I've got a few merchant caravans complaining about unfair play amongst the merchant businesses and rather than tell them to piss off Oliver decided I should placate them to try and keep business flowing," Hsu sighed, collecting a few files and following Richard as both left the office reserved for the Colonel's brief visits to the Strip.

"Good luck, sir," the Ranger offered.

"Thank you, Morgan. I'm going to want it," the Colonel replied with a half-hearted laugh before the two split off, he turning to follow the corridor leading out to the monorail and Morgan continuing onwards to the embassy's front doors.

Cass was waiting for him as he wandered out into the early evening. "So, guess who's back?"

"I heard. Where is he? Vegas is no fun when you're here on-duty, the sooner we find him the sooner I clock off and get to enjoy my stay," Richard replied striding out into the street, past the Securitrons who now guarded the embassy's gates.

The sound of the metallic beings twisting to watch him was unnerving as he passed. Forbidden from wearing weapons on the Strip, the Securitrons would be able to do as they pleased if the NCR truly angered House.

Then he realised the new faces on them were soldiers now, not just police.

It was like a noose tightening around their necks. House had always been a mixed blessing for the NCR, providing Vegas and running it just fine without them, even giving them a spot on the Strip, but behind the pleasantries there was always the distrust and the hints of subterfuge.

Not if the NCR struck first.

"Stacked Deck. Back to the scene of the crime," Cass answered.

"Wonder what takes him back there," the Ranger mused, heading towards the building made to look like a tower of cards.

"Throwing a party?" she suggested hopefully.

Morgan pushed one of the double doors in and stepped beyond, into the large foyer with the enormous pillar, wide enough in circumference that an entire man could comfortably fit inside. It rose all the way up to the ceiling, thirteen floors up and disappearing above into the suite at the top of the building.

The balcony of each floor stacked one above the other, each room with a suit facing them from the pillar in the middle of the room.

Sitting at the reception desk was an old man with a mass of white hair so thin that it no longer obeyed gravity, becoming a fluffy mass that tumbled unevenly down to the back of his neck.

His face, old and wrinkled, contorted into a smile as potential patrons approached, pulling the lines around his mouth taut. "Well, well, another customer or two, is it? And what key shall I fetch for you, my friends? Humble six of hearts? Or perhaps something more grandiose, hmm? The Queen rooms are just the thing for a couple who want a bit of luxury," he offered in a warm, somewhat laboured voice.

"Actually, I'm looking for someone," Morgan replied, making his way over to the counter and leaning against it.

"And for future reference, we're not together in any way beyond travelling companions," Cass pointed out, tailing the Ranger in.

The old man smiled and held back a laugh. "My mistake. Now, who was it you were looking for?"

"The Courier. We heard he was here?" Morgan stated, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

The old man looked down at the book he had been using to keep his clients and rooms in. The name 'Courier Six' was easy to see, booked into the most prominent room in the hotel. "He's here, but he asked not to be disturbed."

"My name is Richard Morgan. I know him personally, and I've got something here he'll definitely want to see," the Ranger tried to bargain.

"You can leave it here if you like, but he asked not to be disturbed," the old man stated apologetically. "Bad policy to go and bother him after he asked me not to."

"You can't just call the suite? It's just ten seconds and we both get to be done with this," the Ranger continued pushing.

The old man sighed and gave him a measured look, seeing if he could gauge how patient Morgan was going to be about his delivery. "He says no, you're going to leave?"

"Sure thing," he replied, confident he'd pass the test.

The old man mumbled something and picked up a wired receiver, tapping a few numbers on it and then holding it to his ear, giving a smile that was part irritation, part defeat.

"Sorry to bother you, but I've got a man here who says he's Richard Morgan, and you know him… well he claims to have something for you, and he's very insistent about delivering it now. Alr-what?"

Cass, uninterested by the building's design and finding nothing else to occupy her attention, reached into her jacket and unscrewed the cap on her bottle of whiskey.

"Oh, sorry. Interference with the line. Alright, then," the old man finished. "Sorry to bother you."

He placed the device back down and looked up at Morgan, smiling. "He said he's not open to guests right now, but if you'd like to leave that item for him I'll happily hold onto it for when he comes down again."

"What? Come on!" Morgan growled indignantly. "I need to see him."

"Sir, I called him for you, and you said you'd leave if he told you he wasn't accepting guests. He isn't accepting guests," the old man replied. "You can rent a suite to stay at if you like, but I cannot let you go and barge in on a guest when he's asked not to be disturbed. It's bad policy."

"He can give me a hand," came the voice of Aaron Holmes as the stepped out of the elevator. "The Courier just kicked me out for some time alone with Rachel, and I've got something to do over at the Old Mormon Fort. Care to travel with me, Ranger? I could use a keen eye for a walk through Freeside at this time of the evening."

Morgan was surprised by the arrival of the Follower, but he wasn't gaining any ground in reaching the Courier for now, and if what Holmes had just told him was true it meant he could write off the evening as a loss.

"I suppose I'm not otherwise engaged," Morgan agreed, turning back toward Cass, who had swallowed most of the alcohol in her bottle as soon as Holmes had appeared.

She coughed and shrugged, forcing the drink down her throat and keeping her mouth closed in case it shot back up.

"Excellent, let's not waste time," the Follower said, marching past the counter towards the door, passing Morgan and Cassidy as he went.

"Isn't there another chick who usually hangs around you?" Morgan asked, turning to follow him.

"Veronica. She's retreated to her own suite for the evening. Seems what happened earlier has given her something to think about," Holmes replied as they paced through the cool evening air.

The sun had slipped below the walls of Vegas, hiding beneath the towering buildings of the Strip. The neon lights had flared on, a new sun born every night in the heart of the city of sin, partying itself to death by morning. The next night a new heart of light would dance on the grave of its predecessor until it could do so no longer.

"What happened?" Richard wondered.

"You hadn't heard?" Holmes replied. "Earlier today a man tried to kill her in the street. She'd be dead if it weren't for the help of a good man with a revolver."

"I take it that was our Courier?"

"Courier Six? No, actually. Someone else, a man with a flag on his back. Didn't stop long, just gave Veronica a warning about the people she used to work with and then went on his way," the Follower explained.

One of the women standing at the front of Gomorrah gave Morgan a wave and beckoned seductively. He tried not to make eye contact.

"Sounds like a weirdo. What'd he look like?" the Ranger wondered.

"Didn't get a chance to see his face through all the commotion. He took out the guy and then was already on his way off the Strip by the time he stopped to give us anything to remember him by. Other than the bloody corpse of a would-be assassin, that is," the Follower replied.

Morgan turned to look behind him; Cassidy was being oddly quiet this evening. The reason was obvious. She continued to somehow have an infinite supply of alcohol, and was currently making her way through another bottle of it rather than join the conversation. He returned his eyes to the checkpoint as they passed through it.

"Still, that's not important. I'm interested Morgan, what's your opinion of the Enclave?" Holmes wondered, cutting right to it.

"What? The hell's the Enclave got to do with this?" the Ranger demanded, on edge just from the mention.

"I suppose that's something of an answer in itself," Aaron mused. "Humour me, I read a few things about them recently and I'm curious to see what the modern opinion is."

"Enclave? I know about them," Cass said, sparked into the conversation. "They're no better than the Brotherhood!"

"Worse, if the stories are to be believed," Morgan agreed. "They could have wiped out the NCR back in its early days if not for the Chosen One. Hell, some people even said they might have taken over America."

"All of it? Wonder if such a thing is even possible," Aaron mused thoughtfully. "Still, history claims it actually happened once, long ago."

"Yeah, I've seen the holovids. Huge cities, people everywhere. California's got nothing on 'em yet. Although Vault City's pretty large, maybe one day it could rival the Old World," Morgan replied.

"Wouldn't that be a sight?" Holmes said with a chuckle. "But if you want the Old World, look at where we are. Vegas is preserved."  
>The gates of the Strip opened, permitting them to enter Freeside once again.<p>

"Maybe, but the place feels kind of cold, doesn't it? Ever been to Vault City? It all feels a little more… connected. Granted, some of that's because there are criminal connections everywhere, but people say hello in the street," Morgan said, shooting a glance back at the neon city.

Holmes laughed. "Criminal connections aren't your usual sense of community. You never did properly answer my question though. What do you, Richard Morgan, think about the Enclave?"

"Well they're bad, I suppose. I only know what they told me back in school, but they were hunted for a reason. Even one with access to the right technology could wipe out scores of people," Richard replied evenly.

"Saw a suit o' that armour they wore once," Cass interjected, now that the subject was back to the Enclave. "That shit could stop a grenade."

"Really?" Holmes said, surprised. "A grenade?"

"Well, maybe not if it was standing on top of it, but its fuckin' durabull," she slurred.

"Quite impressive. The Brotherhood's just as strong though, isn't it? Or was? So why is the Enclave feared like a phantom, while the Brotherhood are treated like very sturdy rats?" Holmes continued interrogating.

The streets of Freeside at this time of night were not yet at their most dangerous, but the lowlifes prowled all day long, so calling it the 'least' dangerous wasn't quite right either.

Fires burned in drums along the street, lit by the gangs of people standing around them for warmth, then later dragged away to somewhere more concealed when it was time for another night of sleep, hoping nobody would choose their door to break down.

Despite it all though, the lights were still on. Lamp posts continued to shine light down, illuminating the main street but leaving the allies from which the filth of Freeside's society could spill.

"The Brotherhood are predictable because the NCR's known them for so long. They go for technology, they hide in holes. If they went to take a place they're arrogant about it, they send squads, not armies. The Enclave was different. They had armies, and they didn't need to go for technology because they already had better. When they attacked their equipment wasn't whatever they'd salvaged and hoarded, it was the best stuff in the world," Morgan explained, keeping his eyes keen. "Why so curious? Shouldn't you know, as a Follower?"

"The Followers tend to discourage their own from pursuits like mine, even if they acknowledge the value of chronicling technological weaponry. Until recently the Enclave had been of little consequence to my research, but now I've encountered cause to investigate the matter a little further. Perhaps I felt chatty," Holmes replied.

"Care to elaborate on that?" the Ranger asked.

They approached the walls of the Old Mormon Fort as it was known, the well guarded base of the Followers of the Apocalypse.

"Hey, military man!" came a yell from a darkened alley.

The Ranger's eyes narrowed, and Cass suddenly became remarkably sober, pulling her shotgun from her back and sending the bottle of whisky twirling away to smash against the wreckage of a car.

"Easy, nothing's happened yet," Aaron said, hushed.

"Don't let them come to us," Cass growled.

Someone was walking up the street towards them, coming from the gates that opened out into the greater Vegas area. The darkness of the evening left the features unclear, but it didn't seem to be the form that had let out the yell.

Whoever they were they walked slowly and cautiously, the yell from the local likely having put them on edge.

"We don't want you here!" someone else yelled.

"Stay quiet, stay unassuming. We're only going to make things worse by drawing giving them a reason to get hostile," the Follower continued, trying to keep the situation calm.

The figure walking away from the gates passed them by. Up closer Richard could see it was a woman huddled over, dressed in rags with discoloured skin and gaunt eyes. Fastened around her neck was something thick and black.

Aaron rapped on a heavy wooden door set in one of the thick towers built on the fort's corners, and after a few moments a pair of eyes appeared through a slot in the door. "Oh, it's you. Bit late to be out walking, isn't it?"

"I brought an escort," Aaron replied, gesturing to Morgan. "Let us in, the locals don't like him."

"Aaron, this woman looks like she needs medical help," the Ranger said, turning toward the Follower.

Suddenly the ragged looking woman was alert, her wide eyes turning to them in panic.

"Wow, she looks like shit," Cass observed with mountains of class. "Get her a bed and some medication, doc."

"No," the girl replied, trying to sound polite but failing miserably, the word instead collapsing into a whimper.

All three of them sensed something was terribly wrong. Morgan took a step towards her, his hand reaching forward. "Hey, are you okay? You look like you need help," he offered.

The woman tripped over in her hasty attempt to get away. "No, no, no, no," she pleaded. "It wasn't my fault! I was trying to hide it!"

The thick object on her neck began to beep with increasing speed. Cassidy stepped back on instinct.

Aaron seemed to understand the situation. "Get that thing off her neck! Now!" he yelled. "Morgan!"

Used to taking orders on short notice, the soldier simply accepted that Aaron knew more about what was happening than he did, and he moved for the woman, who shrieked and pleaded for the beeping to stop.

"I'm trying to help!" the Ranger grunted as he knelt beside the girl and placed a hand on the thick black device. It's beeping was rapid and frenzied now, as were its wearer's shallow gasps of air.

Close enough now, he could see that the woman had something in her ear, a piece of technology that looked completely out of place amongst the ragged scraps she wore.

There was another voice he could hear under the woman's. That of a grizzled old man.

"The calibration seems to be successful. Range is still a problem. Better than nothing. Bye, sweetheart. You were useful enough."

In her final moments the woman gave up, giving the Ranger a chance to reach closer as the old man's words rang in his ears.

The bomb collar exploded, ripping her head clean off.

As Richard Morgan dropped backwards onto the ground, scorched wounds ripped open on his arm, he caught glimpses of the people above him. Cass in a fit of panic grabbing him to drag his body into the Mormon Fort and two Followers of the Apocalypse rushing to join her from within.

Aaron Holmes watched him, his brow furrowed in an unreadable expression.

_~Burn: An anti-cheating measure in poker games, 'burning' is the act of removing a card prior to dealing, preventing this card from entering play and making it more difficult to anticipate the next card to be dealt._


End file.
